Folly Quotes

The wise man who is not heeded is counted a fool, and the fool who proclaims the general folly first and loudest passes for a prophet and Führer, and sometimes it is luckily the other way round as well, or else mankind would long since have perished of stupidity.

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.

The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.

You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing!

Fools multiply when wise men are silent.

The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive. . . No man is so wise but that he may learn some wisdom from his past errors, either of thought or action, and no society has made such advances as to be capable of no improvement from the retrospect of its past folly and credulity.

Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.

The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.

[We must] teach the advocates for an open trade the folly as well as degradation of their policy.

Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.

… politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia

Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly; the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop.

To punish madmen is as great folly as to sympathize with their condition

Silence is not always a sign of wisdom, but babbling is ever a mark of folly.

Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.

War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.

There are two things that are infinite: The universe and human folly. And sometimes I am not sure about the universe.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

An intelligent enemy is better than a stupid friend.

Mingle a little folly with your wisdom; a little nonsense, now and then, is pleasant.

Of all the follies the greatest is to love the world.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.