49 Foolish Quotes

In a world where wisdom often takes center stage, it's refreshing and occasionally insightful to delve into the words of folly. Whether delivered humorously, imparted with unintended irony, or shared in a moment of whimsical candor, foolish quotes can provide a surprising lens through which we view life, decision-making, and human nature. This curated collection of the top 49 foolish quotes invites you to explore the lighter, and sometimes bewildering, side of human expression. Prepare to chuckle, ponder, and maybe even recognize a bit of your own folly within the words of others.

1. “Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town?” - Mark Twain

2. “Compromise is a stalling between two fools.” - Stephen Fry

3. “Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.” - Dale Carnegie

4. “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” - Soren Kierkegaard

5. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” - Alexander Pope

6. “Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves.” - Thomas Jefferson

7. “In history, as elsewhere, fools rush in, and the angels may perhaps be forgiven if rather than tread in those treacherous paths they tread upon the fools instead.” - G. R. Elton

8. “To every rule there is an exception—and an idiot ready to demonstrate it. Don't be the one!” - Vera Nazarian

9. “But heroes, at times, had to be fools.” - Steve Berry

10. “The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

11. “Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.” - George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron)

12. “We fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living.” - Stephen King

13. “WARNINGThis is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as non-traditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank. If that sort of thing bothers you, then gentle reader pass by, for we endeavor only to entertain, not to offend. That said, if that’s the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story!” - Christopher Moore

14. “The world is full of fools, and he who would not see it should live alone and smash his mirror.” - Claude Le Petit

15. “We're all fools," said Clemens, "all the time. It's just we're a different kind each day. We think, I'm not a fool today. I've learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect and live accordingly.” - Ray Bradbury

16. “The fools among us are presented to be wise and the wise among us are presented to be fools.” - Santosh Kalwar

17. “So said Hair-Face, and they killed him, because, they said, he was a wild man and wanted to go back and live in a tree. It was very strange. Whenever a man arose and wanted to go forward all those that stood still said he went backward and should be killed. And the poor people helped stone him, and were fools. We were all fools, except those who were fat and did no work. The fools were called wise, and the wise were stoned. Men who worked did not get enough to eat, and the men who did not work ate too much.” - Jack London

18. “Heaven is no permanent abode of morons even though they may gain entry by sheer virtuosity of their deeds."Ashoka Prasad(Hegelian Lecture)” - Ashoka Prasad

19. “A knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear.” - William Shakespeare

20. “We were fools and now we were driving to our deaths in a rental car. Janet Jackson was tinkling from the speakers, asking what we had done for her as of late” - Dave Eggers

21. “Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.” - Octavia E. Butler

22. “The greatest fools are ofttimes more clever than the men who laugh at them.” - George R.R. Martin

23. “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves and wiser people so full of doubt.” - Leah Wilson

24. “Alvin smiled back, and kissed her. "People talk about fools counting chickens before they hatch. That's nothing. We name them.” - Orson Scott Card

25. “Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don't have brains enough to be honest.” - Benjamin Franklin

26. “The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.” - William Hazlitt

27. “Foolish men always believe that a little knowledge will give them control over the world, but it is no more than a display of their vanity.” - J. P. Vinluca

28. “The fool who knows his folly Becomes wise by that fact.But the fool who thinks he's wise - He's called 'a fool' indeed!” - Anonymous

29. “If you never see a fool You'll always be happy.The one who keeps company with fools Will be sorry for a long time.It's painful to live with fools, Like being always with an enemy.” - Anonymous

30. “So the carnival steams by, shakes ANY tree: it rains jackasses.” - Ray Bradbury

31. “What have you done when you have bested a fool?” - Charles Portis

32. “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that.” - Benjamin Franklin

33. “If it's true what is said, that only the wise discover the wise, then it must also be true that the lone wolf symbolizes either the biggest fool on the planet or the biggest Einstein on the planet.” - Criss Jami

34. “For a more than miffed Midnight, fate was for emperors, fools and soppy lovers: - fate was the self-important egotism of those doing well, the sheer unbearable arrogance of the living and loved.” - Tom Conrad

35. “What glitters may not be gold; and even wolves may smile; and fools will be led by promises to their deaths.” - Lauren Oliver

36. “Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that, once ignorance is put aside, that wonderment would be taken away, which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.” - Baruch de Spinoza

37. “I have learned to read the papers calmly and not to hate the fools I read about.” - Edmund Wilson

38. “Dink, my boy, I'll be a millionaire in ten years. You know what I'm figuring out all this time? I'm going at this scientifically. I'm figuring out the number of fools there are on the top of this globe, classifying 'em, looking out what they want to be fooled on. I'm making an exact science of it.""Go on," said Dink, amused and perplexed, for he was trying to distinguish the serious and the humorous."What's the principle of a patent medicine?—advertise first, then concoct your medicine. All the science of Foolology is: first, find something all the fools love and enjoy, tell them it's wrong, hammer it into them, give them a substitute and sit back, chuckle, and shovel away the ducats. Bread's wrong, coffee's wrong, beer's wrong. Why, Dink, in the next twenty years all the fools will be feeding on substitutes for everything they want; no salt—denatured sugar—anti-tea—oiloline—peanut butter—whale's milk—et cetera, et ceteray, and blessing the name of the fool-master who fooled them.” - Owen Johnson

39. “To expect to be kissed having bad breath is the secret of a fool.” - Dejan Stojanovic

40. “The problem with the wise is they are so filled with doubts and questions, while fools are so certain about things.” - Shannon L. Alder

41. “When Jim Donell thought of something to say he said it as often and in as many ways as possible, perhaps because he had very few ideas and had to wring each one dry.” - Shirley Jackson

42. “You will rarely make wise decisions if you surround yourself with fools” - Rasheed Ogunlaru

43. “Bitter people are not interested in what you say, but what you hide.” - Shannon L. Alder

44. “There are two kinds of Fools. The real Fool is the most sincere of mortals: the Court Fool and his kind—the trifling, jesting buffoon—but simulate the family virtue, and steal the family name, for sordid purposes.” - Albion Winegar Tourgée

45. “Fools talk, cowards silence , wise men listen” - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

46. “What has infused my very blood with an unconquerable hatred of the whole tribe of fools from the day of my birth is that I become a fool myself whenever I am in their company.” - Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt

47. “There had never been a shortage of fools in the world” - Stephen King

48. “Everyone gets scared at times. It's only the fools who won't admit it.” - Jennifer A. Nielsen

49. “stultorum infnitus est numerus (the number of fools is infinite)” - Ecclesiastes