37 Quotes Tagged: folly

Ah, among the unhappiest blunders a man makes is this, that he childishly misjudges the value of the gifts that nature bestows on him most easily, and, contrariwise, considers most precious the endowments that come hardest. The precious stone buried in the earth's entrails, the pearl hidden in the ocean depths — these are what people regard as the greatest treasures; but they would look down on them if nature strewed them underfoot like pebbles and seashells. We are casual about our own excellences; we try to deceive ourselves about out weaknesses so long that we end up taking them for eminent virtues. Once, after a concert by Paganini, when I confronted the master with passionate praises for his violin playing, he interrupted me with these words: 'But today how did you like my bows, my genuflections?

What will it be in the end? One flies to the east, the other to the west; they lose the principle, dispersing it in the crowd of incidents: after an hour of tempest, they know not what they seek: one is low, the other high, and a third wide. One catches at a word and a simile; another is no longer sensible of what is said in opposition to him, and thinks only of going on at his own rate, not of answering you: another, finding himself too weak to make good his rest, fears all, refuses all, at the very beginning, confounds the subject; or, in the very height of the dispute, stops short and is silent, by a peevish ignorance affecting a proud contempt or a foolishly modest avoidance of further debate: provided this man strikes, he cares not how much he lays himself open; the other counts his words and weighs them for reasons; another only brawls and uses the advantage of his lungs. Here’s one who learnedly concludes against himself, and another, who deafens you with prefaces and senseless digressions: another falls into downright railing, and seeks a quarrel after the German fashion, to disengage himself from a wit that presses too hard upon him: and a last man sees nothing into the reason of the thing, but draws a line of circumvallation about you of dialectic clauses, and the formulas of his art.

All the worse for the undeniable talent which hides the evil so subtly and makes the danger so delightful.

...for it is the small temptations which undermine integrity unless we watch and pray and never think them too trivial to be resisted.

Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something he can see and feel.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.

Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.

I will tear this folly from my heart, though every fibre bleed as I rend it away!

The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.

I expect nothing of man, and disown the race. The only folly is expecting what is never attained; man is most contemptible when compared with his own pretensions. It is better to laugh at man from outside the universe, than to weep for him within.

Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. [He is also a fool.]

The highest form of bliss is living with a certain degree of folly.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that.

There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.