Foolishness has long been a fascinating subject in literature, philosophy, and everyday life. From witty observations to profound insights, quotes about fools offer a unique perspective on human nature, wisdom, and folly. In this collection, we’ve gathered 62 of the best fool quotes to inspire reflection, laughter, and perhaps a bit of caution. Whether you’re seeking humor or wisdom, these quotes remind us that sometimes, the fool holds a truth others overlook.
1. “Any fool can make a ruleAnd any fool will mind it.” - Henry David Thoreau
2. “No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool.” - T.S. Eliot
3. “I have great faith in fools - self-confidence my friends will call it.” - Edgar Allan Poe
4. “There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.” - Charles Proteus Steinmetz
5. “Who loves not women, wine and song remains a fool his whole life long” - noauthor
6. “It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question.” - John Stuart Mill
7. “[Man] progresses in all things by resolutely making a fool of himself.” - George Bernard Shaw
8. “Only fool keeps mocking perseverance.” - Toba Beta
9. “This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;And to do that well craves a kind of wit:He must observe their mood on whom he jests,The quality of persons, and the time,And, like the haggard, check at every featherThat comes before his eye. This is a practiseAs full of labour as a wise man's artFor folly that he wisely shows is fit;But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.” - William Shakespeare
10. “There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, " This is new, and therefore better.” - John Brunner
11. “To every rule there is an exception—and an idiot ready to demonstrate it. Don't be the one!” - Vera Nazarian
12. “A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.” - Thomas Fuller
13. “Honor is a fool's prize. Glory is of no use to the dead.” - Drew Karpyshyn
14. “A man learns to skate by staggering about and making a fool of himself. Indeed he progresses in all things by resolutely making a fool of himself.” - George Bernard Shaw
15. “If it is ones lot to be cast among fools, one must learn foolishness.” - Alexandre Dumas
16. “Any fool can turn a blind eye but who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand.” - Samuel Beckett
17. “Please, help me. Young werewolves in love. I turned to walk into the house, moving carefully.I had never much believed in God. Well, that's not quite true. I believed that there was a God, or something close enough to it to warrant the name if there were demons, there had to be angels, right? If there was a Devil, somewhere, there had to be a God. But He & I had never really seen things in quite the same terms.All the same. I flashed a look up at the ceiling. I didn't say or think any words, but if God was listening, I hoped he got the message nonetheless. I didn't want of these children getting themselves killed.” - Jim Butcher
18. “Love needs room to grow. Like a rose. Or a tumor.” - Christopher Moore
19. “Love? Sodding, bloody, tossing, bloody, sodding, bloody love? Irrelevant, superfluous, bloody, ruddy, rotten, sodding love? What ho? Wherefore? What the f*ck? Love?” - Christopher Moore
20. “What is your name?" asked Lear.Caius," said Kent.And whence do you hail?"From Bonking, sire."Well, yes, lad, as do we all," said Lear, "but from what town?” - Christopher Moore
21. “I'll not have an exchange with an impudent fool." [Oswald]He's not impudent," said Jones [the puppet]. "With proper inspiration, the lad sports a woody as stout as a mooring pin. Ask your lady."I nodded in agreement with the puppet, for he is most wise for having a brain of sawdust.Impudent! Impudent! Not impotent!" said Oswald, frothing a bit now.” - Christopher Moore
22. “A hundred brilliant witticisms died suffocating on the captain's heavy glove. Thus muted, I pumped my codpiece at the duke and tried to force a fart, but my bum tumpet could find no note.” - Christopher Moore
23. “Next out of the hall came the sisters and their husbands. Before I could say anything, the captain had clamped his hand over my mouth and was lifting me off my feet as I kicked. Cornwall made as to draw his dagger, but Regan pulled him away. "You've just won a kingdom, my duke, killing vermin is a servant's task. Leave the bitter fool stew in his own bile."She wanted me. It was clear.” - Christopher Moore
24. “Soon a whole guild of low-priced shrine keepers around Europe named their own pope - Boldface the Relatively Shameless, Discount Pope of Prague. The price war was on [...] The Retail Pope would offer cheesy bacon toppings on the Host with communion and the Discount Pope would counter with topless nun night for midnight mass.” - Christopher Moore
25. “Advice, then, young yeoman: When referring to the king's middle daughter, state that she is fair, speculate that she is pious, but unless you'd like to spend your watch looking for the box where your head is kept, resist the urge to wax ignorant on her naughty bits." -PocketI don't know what that means, sir." -YeomanSpeak not of Regan's shaggacity, son" [...] -Pocket” - Christopher Moore
26. “Money is the root of all evil.' Then we hear, 'A fool and his money are soon parted.' What are they talking about? If money is so evil, shouldn't it be, 'A wise man and his money are soon parted'? And another thing, how does a fool get money in the first place? I know some fools who have a lot of money, but they won't tell me how they got it, and I won't tell them.” - George Burns
27. “What's a drunken man like, fool?Feste: Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.” - William Shakespeare
28. “I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.” - Kurt Vonnegut
29. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” - Abraham Lincoln
30. “I'm beginning to wonder," said Kent, sitting down now on an overturned wooden tub. "Who do I serve? Why am I here?"You are here, because, in the expanding ethical ambiguity of our situation, you are steadfast in your righteousness. It is to you, our banished friend, that we all turn—a light amid the dark dealings of family and politics. You are the moral backbone on which the rest of us hang our bloody bits. Without you we are merely wiggly masses of desire writhing in our own devious bile."Really?" asked the old knight.Aye," said I.I'm not sure I want to keep company with you lot, then.” - Christopher Moore
31. “Ask a sage, he will explain.Ask a fool, he will complain.” - Toba Beta
32. “The Cutter leaned toward me, resting his forehead against mine. 'Fool me once,' he whispered, 'shame on you.' He pressed the bridge of his nose against mine, his breath burning the back of my throat. His voice was rough and furious. 'Fool me twice, and I will cut out your fucking throat.” - Brenna Yovanoff
33. “A fool tries to shut others' mouth instead of listens to his own heart.” - Toba Beta
34. “One-track mind easily predicted.” - Toba Beta
35. “Ydych chi'n cymryd cerdynnau credid?" said the highwayman, no doubt trying to frighten me further, his consonants chained like anal beads strung out of hell's own bunghole.” - Christopher Moore
36. “I know now that what makes a fool is an inability to take even his own good advice.” - William Faulkner
37. “As I drifted along with my bodiless invisibility, I felt myself more and more becoming an empty, floating shape, seeing without being seen and walking without the interference of those grosser creatures who shared my world. It was not an experience completely without interest or even pleasure. The clown's shibboleth of "here we are again" took on a new meaning for me as I felt myself a novitiate of a more rarified order of harlequinry. ("The Last Feast Of The Harlequin")” - Thomas Ligotti
38. “Fool is Alright” - مسعد العرباني
39. “In order to share one's true brilliance one initially has to risk looking like a fool: genius is like a wheel that spins so fast, it at first glance appears to be sitting still.” - Criss Jami
40. “Any fool can do something cool and look cool, but it takes skill to make something uncool cool again.” - Criss Jami
41. “True rebels hate their own rebellion. They know by experience that it is not a cool and glamorous lifestyle; it takes a courageous fool to say things that have not been said and to do things that have not been done.” - Criss Jami
42. “I know you're a fool, Jim Hardy, but for heaven's sake pretend you're not for five minutes.” - L.M. Montgomery
43. “You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” - C. S. Lewis
44. “The cactus thrives in the desert while the fern thrives in the wetland.The fool will try to plant them in the same flowerbox.The florist will sigh and add a wall divider and proper soil to both sides.The grandparent will move the flowerbox halfway out of the sun.The child will turn it around properly so that the fern is in the shade, and not the cactus.The moral of the story?Kids are smart.” - Vera Nazarian
45. “None of them seemed to mind sliding around in the faeces and choking in the smoke. They were determined not to miss the opportunity of watching a foreigner make a fool of himself.” - Tahir Shah
46. “I was a fool for love, I was a fool.” - Tegan Quin
47. “What would have been the fate of sages if there were no fools?” - Ogwo David Emenike
48. “To expect to be kissed having bad breath is the secret of a fool.” - Dejan Stojanovic
49. “(Arbell)The ungrateful gorgeous bitch.” - Paul Hoffman
50. “...the only real fool is the last fool” - Mark Henwick
51. “Cucullus non facit monachum; that’s as much to say, as I wear not motley in my brain.” - William Shakespeare
52. “He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom.” - James Gibbons Huneker
53. “Some take pains to be biblical, but many [Christian financial teachers, writers, investment counselors, and seminar leaders] simply parrot their secular colleagues. Other than beginning and ending with prayer, mentioning Christ, and sprinkling in some Bible verses, there's no fundamental difference. They reinforce people's materialist attitudes and lifestyles. They suggest a variety of profitable plans in which people can spend or stockpile the bulk of their resources. In short, to borrow a term from Jesus, some Christian financial experts are helping people to be the most successful 'rich fools' they can be.” - Randy Alcorn
54. “But what's left on earth that I haven't tried?" Prince Lír demanded. "I have swum four rivers, each in full flood and none less than a mile wide. I have climbed seven mountains never before climbed, slept three nights in the Marsh of the Hanged Men, and walked alive out of that forest where the flowers burn your eyes and the nightingales sing poison. I have ended my betrothal to the princess I had agreed to marry — and if you don't think that was a heroic deed, you don't know her mother. I have vanquished exactly fifteen black knights waiting by fifteen fords in their black pavilions, challenging all who come to cross. And I've long since lost count of the witches in the thorny woods, the giants, the demons disguised as damsels; the glass hills, fatal riddles, and terrible tasks; the magic apples, rings, lamps, potions, swords, cloaks, boots, neckties, and nightcaps. Not to mention the winged horses, the basilisks and sea serpents, and all the rest of the livestock." He raised his head, and the dark blue eyes were confused and sad."And all for nothing," he said. "I cannot touch her, whatever I do. For her sake, I have become a hero — I, sleepy Lír, my father's sport and shame — but I might as well have remained the dull fool I was. My great deeds mean nothing to her.” - Peter S. Beagle
55. “He shook his head pityingly. “This, more than anything else, is what I have never understood about your people. You can roll dice, and understand that the whole game may hinge on one turn of a die. You deal out cards, and say that all a man's fortune for the night may turn upon one hand. But a man's whole life, you sniff at, and say, what, this naught of a human, this fisherman, this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sputter your lives away, like candles burning in a draft.”“Not all men are destined for greatness,” I reminded him.“Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?”“This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.”“No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart's beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?” - Robin Hobb
56. “The proverb says that 'The answer to a fool is silence'. Observation, however, indicates that almost any other answer will have the same effect in the long run.” - Idries Shah
57. “Why is it that at the very moment I need to appear graceful I stumble and fall like a klutz, as though this scene had never played through my mind differently a million times?” - Richelle E. Goodrich
58. “Deemed a fool is better than smartass.” - Toba Beta
59. “The biggest fool is one who minds the business of others rather than minding his very own” - Amit Abraham
60. “They must take me for a fool, or even worse, a lunatic. And no wonder ,for I am so intensely conscious of my misfortune and my misery is so overwhelming that I am powerless to resist it and am being turned into stone, devoid of all knowledge or feeling.” - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
61. “You can be a writer who doesn't read everyday. But you're not fooling anyone. It shows, rather embarrassingly, in your work.” - Don Roff
62. “Only a fool believes that his actions don't shape the world.” - Richelle E. Goodrich
