Fools have fortune. [ Proverb ]
Fortune favors fools. [ Anonymous ]
Of what I call God,
And fools call Nature. [ Robert Browning ]
Fortune favours fools. [ Proverb ]
Words are fools' pence. [ Proverb ]
Fools will be meddling. [ Proverb ]
Fair words please fools. [ Proverb ]
Fools are not mad folks. [ Shakespeare ]
Fools are without number. [ Erasmus ]
The blind goddess of fools. [ Chapman ]
Custom is the law of fools. [ Vanburgh ]
God only understands fools. [ French Proverb ]
A fool's bolt is soon shot. [ William Shakespeare ]
Fools grow without watering. [ Proverb ]
We are fools one to another. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
A rogue is a roundabout fool. [ Coleridge ]
Only the event teaches fools. [ Liv ]
Fools form a numerous people. [ Florian ]
Great fools have great bells. [ Dutch Proverb ]
Children and fools tell truth. [ Proverb ]
Fools are not to be convinced. [ Proverb ]
The fool doth think he is wise. [ Shakespeare ]
In love we are all fools alike. [ Gay ]
The never-failing vice of fools. [ Pope ]
None but a fool is always right. [ Hare ]
Idleness is the holiday of fools. [ Chesterfield ]
Prejudice is the reason of fools. [ Voltaire ]
Experience makes even fools wise. [ Proverb ]
Repentance is the whip for fools. [ Proverb ]
Knaves and fools divide the world. [ Proverb ]
'Tis an old maxim in the schools
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit. [ Swift ]
The unfortunate are counted fools. [ Proverb ]
It needs brains to be a real fool. [ George MacDonald ]
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame. [ Byron ]
Lord, what fools these mortals be! [ William Shakespeare ]
It is an old maxim in the schools
That flattery's the food for fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit,
Will condescend to take a bit. [ Swift ]
To the fool-king belongs the world. [ Schiller ]
I'll print it, and shame the fools. [ Pope ]
Despair is the conclusion of fools. [ Beaconsfield ]
Fools are stubborn in their way,
As coins are hardened by the allay;
And obstinacy's never so stiff
As when 'tis in a wrong belief. [ Butler ]
Experience is the teacher of fools. [ Livy ]
Children and fools have merry lives. [ Proverb ]
Experience is the mistress of fools. [ Proverb ]
Even fools sometimes speak shrewdly. [ Proverb ]
Hail mildly, pleasing solitude.
Companion of the wise and good,
But from whose holy, piercing eye,
The herds of fools and villains fly;
Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whispered talk,
Which innocence and truth imparts,
And meets the most obdurate hearts. [ Thomson ]
Fools, to talking ever prone
Are sure to make their follies known. [ Gay ]
By outward show let's not be cheated;
An ass should like an ass be treated. [ Gay ]
Fools never understand people of wit. [ Vauvenargues ]
To the counsel of fools a wooden bell. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The paradise of fools, to few unknown. [ Milton ]
O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear. [ William Shakespeare ]
Fortune makes folly her peculiar care. [ Churchill ]
Even the fool is wise after the event. [ Homer ]
Fools admire, but men of sense approve. [ Pope ]
Too many giddy, foolish hours are gone. [ Rowe ]
Fools give to please all but their own. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
No creature smarts so little as a fool. [ Pope ]
Mingle a little folly with your wisdom. [ Horace ]
How many fond fools serve mad jealousy! [ William Shakespeare ]
Who are a little wise the best fools be. [ Donne ]
The wise man knows himself to be a fool. [ William Shakespeare ]
A companion of fools shall be destroyed. [ Proverbs xiii. 20 ]
Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit. [ William Shakespeare ]
Fools tie knots and wise men loose them. [ Proverb ]
Nature makes fools; women make coxcombs.
Often times to please fools wise men err. [ Proverb ]
Laughter is common in the mouth of fools.
Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them. [ Proverb ]
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. [ Pope ]
In idle wishes fools supinely stay;
Be there a will, then wisdom finds a way. [ William Shakespeare ]
For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administered is best. [ Pope ]
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song. [ Byron ]
Where two fools meet the bargain goes off. [ Proverb ]
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge. [ Cowper ]
Fools may sometimes give wise men counsel. [ Proverb ]
Fools are pleased with their own blunders. [ Proverb ]
Old fools are more foolish than young ones. [ Rochefoucauld ]
A fool may now and then be right by chance. [ Cowper ]
Fool beckons fool, and dunce awakens dunce. [ Churchill ]
Love makes fools of us all, big and little. [ Thackeray ]
Fools are wise men in the affairs of women. [ Proverb ]
Were there no fools bad ware would not pass. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Fools build houses, and wise men enjoy them. [ Proverb ]
Fools set stools tor wise men to stumble at. [ Proverb ]
Change of weather is the discourse of fools. [ Proverb ]
Greatness, thou gaudy torment of our souls,
The wise man's fetter and the rage of fools. [ Otway ]
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow;
Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so. [ Pope ]
Opinion, that great fool, makes fools of all. [ Field ]
Amiability is the redeeming quality of fools. [ Miss Braddon ]
Wise men argue causes, and fools decide them. [ Anacharsis ]
Of all the causes that conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind.
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools. [ Pope ]
A barber learns to shave by shaving of fools. [ Proverb ]
Wind puffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools. [ Socrates ]
If she do frown, it is not in hate of you,
But rather to beget more love in you:
If she do chide, it is not to have you gone;
For why, the fools are mad if left alone.
Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;
For - get you gone - she doth not mean - away. [ William Shakespeare ]
Wise men make proverbs, and fools repeat them. [ Proverb ]
Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease.
Whom Folly pleases, and whose Follies please. [ Pope ]
Fools and obstinate men make the lawyers rich. [ Proverb ]
Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die. [ Young ]
Two fools in a house are too many by a couple. [ Proverb ]
Tales of Robin Hood are good enough for fools. [ Proverb ]
Fools carry their daggers in their open mouths. [ H. W. Shaw ]
What matter though the scorn of fools be given,
If the path follow'd lead us on to heaven! [ Mrs. Hale ]
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray. [ Goldsmith ]
What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue! [ Burke ]
Those dreams, that on the silent night intrude,
And with false flitting shades our minds delude,
Jove never sends us downward from the skies;
Nor can they from infernal mansions rise;
But are all mere productions of the brain,
And fools consult interpreters in vain. [ Swift ]
Many talk like philosophers and live like fools. [ Proverb ]
Lawyers' houses are built on the heads of fools. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Wanton jests make fools laugh and wise men frown. [ Fuller ]
Ever since Adam, fools have been in the majority. [ Casimir Delavigne ]
The loquacity of fools, is a lecture to the wise. [ Proverb ]
Many that are wits in jest, are fools in earnest. [ Proverb ]
It is the property of fools to be always judging. [ Proverb ]
Virginity is poetry: it does not exist for fools. [ Limayrac ]
Fools may invent fashions that wise men will wear. [ Proverb ]
Prosperity destroys fools, and endangers the wise. [ Proverb ]
I have play'd the fool, the gross fool, to believe
The bosom of a friend will hold a secret
Mine own could not retain. [ Massinger ]
As much wit as three folks, two fools and a madman. [ Proverb ]
If the wise erred not, it would go hard with fools. [ George Herbert ]
The multitude of fools is a protection to the wise. [ St. Augustine ]
Fools bite one another, but wise men agree together. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Who lives without folly is not so wise as he thinks. [ La Rochefoucauld ]
Revenge is sweeter than life itself. So think fools. [ Juvenal ]
The world is too narrow for two fools a quarrelling. [ Proverb ]
Wise men may look ridiculous in the company of fools. [ Proverb ]
Suffering is the mother of fools, reason of wise men.
Be wise with speed; A fool at forty is a fool indeed. [ Montaigne ]
A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant fool. [ Moliere ]
Drunkenness makes men fools; some beasts, some devils. [ Proverb ]
Fools! not to know how better, for the soul,
An honest half, than an ill-gotten whole:
How richer, he who dines on herbs, with health
Of heart, than knaves with all their wines and wealth. [ Hesiod ]
There are follies as catching as contagious disorders. [ La Rochefoucauld ]
Pheasants are fools if they invite the hawk to dinner. [ Proverb ]
While we flee from our fate, we like fools rush on it. [ Buchanan ]
Fools and philosophers were made out of the same metal. [ Proverb ]
Fools are always resolute to make good their own folly. [ Proverb ]
Custom is the plague of wise men and the idol of fools. [ Proverb ]
He shall have enough to do who studies to please fools. [ Proverb ]
A wise man may look ridiculous in the company of fools. [ Proverb ]
Wise men learn by other men's harms, fools by their own. [ Proverb ]
How can you think yourself the wiser for pleasing fools? [ Proverb ]
The first chapter of fools is to esteem themselves wise. [ Proverb ]
If fools went not to market, bad wares would not be sold. [ Proverb ]
That which makes wise men modest, makes fools unmannerly. [ Proverb ]
If fools should not fool it they shall lose their season. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Fools lade out all the water, and wise men take the fish. [ Proverb ]
Those who have even studied good books may still be fools. [ Hitopadesa ]
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. [ Voltaire ]
Children, when little, make parents fools, when great, mad. [ Proverb ]
Fools and madmen ought not to be left in their own company. [ Proverb ]
No man is esteemed for gay garments but by fools and women. [ Sir Walter Raleigh ]
Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters. [ Swift ]
A fool cannot look, nor stand, nor walk like a man of sense. [ La Bruyere ]
Zeal is fit only for wise men, but is found mostly in fools. [ Proverb ]
There may be such things as old fools and young counsellors. [ Proverb ]
Zeal is fit for wise men, but flourishes chiefly among fools. [ Tillotson ]
If all fools wore white caps we should seem a flock of geese. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Fools will not part with their bauble for all Lombard street. [ Proverb ]
A bold fellow is the jest of wise men, and the idol of fools. [ Proverb ]
No one should so act as to take advantage of another's folly. [ Cicero ]
Fools are all the world over, as he said that shod the goose. [ Proverb ]
Fools can find fault indeed, but they cannot act more wisely. [ Langbein ]
If love gives wit to fools, it undoubtedly takes it from wits. [ A. Karr ]
Words are wise men's counters, but they are the money of fools. [ Hobbes ]
Knaves are in such repute, that honest men are accounted fools. [ Proverb ]
There are well-dressed follies, as there are well-clothed fools. [ Chamfort ]
Silence is the wit of fools, and one of the virtues of the wise. [ Bonnard ]
It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal uncured wounds. [ Horace ]
If there were no knaves and fools, all the world would be alike. [ Proverb ]
Wise men learn something of fools, but fools nothing of wise men. [ Proverb ]
Young men think old men fools; but old men know the young are so. [ Proverb ]
Fools may ask more in an hour, than wise men can answer in seven. [ Proverb ]
Every man's follies are the caricature resemblances of his wisdom. [ John Sterling ]
Etiquette is the invention of wise men to keep fools at a distance. [ Steele ]
Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to be so. [ Camden ]
Thou little thinkest what a little foolery governs the whole world. [ John Seliden ]
He must be a thorough fool who can learn nothing from his own folly. [ J. C. and A. W. Hare ]
Of all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper. [ Goethe ]
They that talk like philosophers are often observed to act like fools. [ Proverb ]
Generally nature hangs out a sign of simplicity in the face of a fool. [ Thomas Fuller ]
The public! the public! How many fools does it take to make up a public. [ Chamfort ]
It never occurs to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united. [ Goethe ]
All men are fools, and with every effort they differ only in the degree. [ Boileau ]
A downright contradiction is equally mysterious to wise men as to fools. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools. [ Shakespeare ]
Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools. [ George Chapman ]
Fear of hypocrites and fools is the great plague of thinking and writing. [ J. Janin ]
A man of wit would often be much embarrassed without the company of fools. [ La Roche ]
I am a fool, I know it; and yet, God help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit. [ Congreve ]
There are some trifles well habited, as there are some fools well clothed. [ Chamfort ]
The public! the public! how many fools does it require to make the public? [ Chamfort ]
Experience teaches fools, and he is a great one that will not learn by it. [ Proverb ]
Surely he is not a fool that hath unwise thoughts, but he that utters them. [ Bishop Hall ]
If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your looking-glass. [ Rabelais ]
Remember that in all miseries lamenting becomes fools, and action, wise folk. [ Sir P. Sidney ]
People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise. [ Lady Montagu ]
A man may be as much a fool from the want of sensibility as the want of sense. [ Mrs. Jameson ]
London bridge was made for wise men to pass over, and for fools to pass under. [ Proverb ]
Wise and good men invented the laws, but fools and the wicked put them upon it. [ Proverb ]
I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well. [ Hazlitt ]
Shallow men speak of the past, wise men of the present, and fools of the future. [ Mme. du Deffand ]
All men are fools, and notwithstanding all their care, they differ but in degree. [ Boileau ]
A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible. [ Colton ]
Women, like men, may be persuaded to confess their faults; but their follies, never. [ Alfred de Musset ]
Levity of behavior, always a weakness, is far more unbecoming in a woman than a man. [ William Penn ]
Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that have not wit enough to be honest. [ Benjamin Franklin ]
A man of wit would often be much embarrassed if it were not for the company of fools. [ La Roche ]
There are more fools than sages; and among the sages, there is more folly than wisdom. [ Chamfort ]
Anger may glance into the breast of a wise man, but rests only in the bosoms of fools. [ Proverb ]
'Tis my maxim, he's a fool that marries; but he's a greater that does not marry a fool. [ Wycherly ]
It would be easier to endow a fool with intellect than to persuade him that he had none. [ Babinet ]
The instruction of the foolish is a waste of knowledge; soap cannot wash charcoal white. [ Kabir ]
Nature does not like to be observed, and likes that we should be her fools and playmates. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Childien when they are little make parents fools, when they are great they make them mad. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
He that has no fools, knaves, nor beggars in his family was begot by a flash of lightning. [ Proverb ]
Those are wise who through error press on to truth; those are fools who hold fast by error. [ Rückert ]
If the advice of a fool for once happens to be good, it requires a wise man to carry it out. [ Lessing ]
It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others, and to forget his own. [ Cicero ]
Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents. [ William Shakespeare ]
For words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools. [ Thomas Hobbes ]
Great men undertake great things because they are great, and fools because they think them easy. [ Vauvenargues ]
People have no right to make fools of themselves, unless they have no relations to blush for them. [ Haliburton ]
Great men essay enterprises because they think them great, and fools because they think them easy. [ Vauvenargues ]
God save the fools, and don't let them run out; for, without them, wise men couldn't get a living. [ Amer. Proverb ]
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. [ Bible ]
Touch not the lute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent. [ Herder ]
Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. [ William Shakespeare ]
Greece, so much praised for her wisdom, never produced but seven wise men: judge of the number of fools! [ Grecourt ]
A fool who has a flash of wit creates astonishment and scandal, like a hack-horse setting out to gallop. [ Chamfort ]
He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever. [ Tillotson ]
Men are so necessarily fools that it would be being a fool in a higher strain of folly, not to be a fool. [ Pascal ]
Experience is the common schoolhouse of fools and ill men. Men of wit and honesty be otherwise instructed. [ Erasmus ]
Fools with bookish knowledge are children with edged weapons; they hurt themselves, and put others in pain. [ Zimmermann ]
In all companies there are more fools than wise men; and the greater number always get the better of the wiser. [ Rabelais ]
Folly is like the growth of weeds, always luxurious and spontaneous; wisdom, like flowers, requires cultivation. [ Hosea Ballou ]
How charming is divine philosophy! not harsh nor crabbed, as dull fools suppose, but musical as is Apollo's lute! [ Milton ]
All men are fools: to escape seeing one, one would be compelled to shut himself in his room, and break his mirror. [ De Sade ]
He is one of those wise philanthropists who, in a time of famine, would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks. [ Douglas Jerrold ]
Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him. [ Bible ]
Fools and sensible men are equally innocuous. It is in the half fools and the half wise that the greatest danger lies. [ Goethe ]
You pity a man who is lame or blind, but you never pity him for being a fool, which is often a much greater misfortune. [ Sydney Smith ]
O form! how oft dost thou with thy case, thy habit, wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls to thy false seeming! [ William Shakespeare ]
There is nothing which one regards so much with an eye of mirth and pity as innocence when it has in it a dash of folly. [ Addison ]
Fools are very often united in the strictest intimacies, as the lighter kinds of woods are the most closely glued together. [ Shenstone ]
The compliments of the season to my worthy masters, and a merry first of April to us all. We have all a speck of the motley. [ Lamb ]
Women are charged with a fondness for nonsense and frivolity. Did not Talleyrand say, I find nonsense singularly refreshing
? [ Alfred de Musset ]
Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools. [ Burke ]
After a man has sown his wild oats in the years of his youth, he has still every year to get over a few weeks and days of folly. [ Richter ]
How can you make a fool perceive that he is a fool? Such a personage can no more see his own folly than he can see his own ears. [ Thackeray ]
Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness. [ Pascal ]
There are certain people fated to be fools; they not only commit follies by choice, but are even constrained to do so by fortune. [ Rochefoucauld ]
O place! O form, how often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls to thy false seeming! [ William Shakespeare ]
No flattery, boy! an honest man cannot live by it; it is a little, sneaking art, which knaves use to cajole and soften fools withal. [ Otway ]
Oh, brother wearers of motley, are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and trembling and the jingling of cap and bells? [ Thackeray ]
Fine speeches are the instruments of fools or knaves, who use them when they want good sense; but honesty needs no disguise or ornament. [ Otway ]
As ceremony is the invention of wise men to keep fools at a distance, so good breeding is an expedient to make fools and wise men equal. [ Steele ]
Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate. [ Montaigne ]
That immense majority, the fools, who made the laws that regulate the manners of the world, very naturally made them for their own benefit.
To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discover who is a fool than to discover who is a clever man. [ Cato ]
The pride of the heart is the attribute of honest men; pride of manners is that of fools; the pride of birth and rank is often the pride of dupes. [ Duclos ]
If a traveler does not meet with one who is his better or his equal, let him firmly keep to his solitary journey; there is no companionship with a fool. [ Max Muller ]
Men of all ages have the same inclinations, over which reason exercises no control. Thus, wherever men are found, there are follies, ay, and the same follies. [ La Fontaine ]
We may hold it slavish to dress according to the judgment of fools and the caprice of coxcombs; but are we not ourselves both when we are singular in our attire? [ Chatfield ]
There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise; and therefore those faculties by which the foolish part of men's minds are taken are more potent. [ Bacon ]
The imputation of being a fool is a thing which mankind, of all others, is the most impatient of, it being a blot upon the prime and specific perfection of human nature. [ South ]
To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so. [ Pope ]
Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools. [ Steele ]
I am one who finds within me a nobility that spurns! the idle pratings of the great, and their mean boasts of what their fathers were, while they themselves are fools effeminate. [ Percival ]
Some old men, by continually praising the time of their youth, would almost persuade us that there were no fools in those days; but unluckily they are left themselves for examples. [ Pope ]
The greatest of fools is he who imposes on himself, and in his greatest concern thinks certainly he knows that which he has least studied, and of which he is most profoundly ignorant. [ Shaftesbury ]
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace, from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. [ William Shakespeare ]
We are not to be astonished that the wise walk more slowly in their road to virtue than fools in their passage to vice; since passion drags us along, while wisdom only points out the way. [ Confucius ]
We are always more disposed to laugh at nonsense than at genuine wit; because the nonsense is more agreeable to us, being more conformable to our own natures: fools love folly, and wise men wisdom. [ Marguerite de Valois ]
What is difficulty? Only a word indicating the degree of strength requisite for accomplishing particular objects; a mere notice of the necessity for exertion; a bugbear to children and fools; only a mere stimulus to men. [ Samuel Warren ]
Love works miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and strengthening the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favoring the passions, destroying reason, and, in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy. [ Marguerite de Valois ]
Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash - for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present. [ Colton ]
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarcely in that; for it is true, we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct. Remember this; they that will not be counseled cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you over your knuckles. [ Benjamin Franklin ]
If all fools had baubles* we should want fuel. (*The fool or jester carried in his hand a wooden sceptre called a bauble. It was a short stick ornamented at the end with the figure of a fool's head, or with that of a puppet or doll. Jesters were still retained in Herbert's day.) [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The word necessary
is miserably applied. It disordereth families, and overturneth government, by being so abused. Remember that children and fools want everything because they want judgment to distinguish; and therefore there is no stronger evidence of a crazy understanding than the making too large a catalogue of things necessary. [ Lord Halifax ]