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The folly of one man is the fortune of another.
Author: Francis Bacon
Source: Of Fortune
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Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he
that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
Author: Bible
Source: Proverbs (ch. XVII, v. 28)
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It is an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool
will be meddling.
Author: Bible
Source: Proverbs (ch. XX, v. 3)
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Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like
unto him.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own
conceit.
Author: Bible
Source: Proverbs (ch. XXVI, v. 4-5)
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Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a
pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.
Author: Bible
Source: Proverbs (ch. XXVII, v. 22)
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The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are
corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that
doeth good.
Author: Bible
Source: Psalms (ch. XIV, v. 1)
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A fool always finds one still more foolish to admire him.
[Fr., Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire.]
Author: Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Source: L'art Poetique (I, 232)
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Fool me no fools.
Author: Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
Source: Last Days of Pompeii (bk. III, ch. 6)
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To swallow gudgeons ere they're catch'd.
And count their chickens ere they're hatch'd.
Author: Samuel Butler (1)
Source: Hudibras (pt. II, canto III, l. 923)
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Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (l. 6)
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Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Monody on the Death of the Rt. Hon. R.B. Sheridan (l. 68)
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Folly is wont to have more followers and comrades than
discretion.
[Sp., Mas acompanados y paniguados debe di tener la locura que la
discrecion.]
Author: Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
Source: Don Quixote (II, 13)
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More knave than fool.
Author: Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
Source: Don Quixote (pt. I, bk. IV, ch. 2)
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Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are
fools.
Author: George Chapman
Source: All Fools (act V, sc. 1, l. 292)
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The shortest follies are the best.
[Fr., Les plus courtes folies sont les meilleures.]
Author: Pierre Charron
Source: Las Sagesse (bk. I, ch. 3)
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Fool beckons fool, and dunce awakens dunce.
Author: Charles Churchill
Source: Apology (l. 42)
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All places are filled with fools.
[Lat., Stultorum plenea sunt omnia.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: Epistles (IX, 22)
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To stumble twice against the same stone, is a proverbial
disgrace.
[Lat., Culpa enim illa, bis ad eundem, vulgari reprehensa
proverbio est.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: Epistles (X, 20)
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A fool must now and then be right by chance.
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: Epistles (X, 20)
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The solemn fog; significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Conversation (l. 299)
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Defend me, therefore, common sense, say
From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Task (bk. III, l. 187)
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Exactness is the sublimity of fools.
[Fr., L'exactitude est le sublime des sots.]
Author: William Cowper
Source: Task (bk. III, l. 187)
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A fool and a wise man are alike both in the starting-place--their
birth, and at the post--their death; only they differ in the race
of their lives.
Author: Thomas Fuller
Source: Holy and Profane States--Of Natural Fools (maxim IV)
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A rational reaction against irrational excesses and vagaries of
skepticism may . . . readily degenerate into the rival folly of
credulity.
Author: Rt. Hon. William Ewart Gladstone
Source: Time and Place of Homer (introductory)
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He is a fool
Who only sees the mischiefs that are past.
Author: Homer ("Smyrns of Chios")
Source: The Iliad (bk. XVII, l. 39), Bryant's translation
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