Quotes & Sayings About Court Jesters

Like old men and like the majority of thinkers, he slept little. — Victor Hugo

Such technological tools ... are helping us now in the hot war against terrorists who would bomb this theater if they had the capacity to do so. — Alan Dershowitz

Satan had two conditions [to his plan]: the first was the denial of agency, and the second, that he would have the honor. In other words, something had to be in it for him. And thus he became the father of lies and selfishness. Taking up one's cross and following the Savior means overcoming selfishness; it is a commitment to serve others. Selfishness is one of the baser human traits, which must be subdued and overcome. We torture our souls when we focus on getting rather than giving. — James E. Faust

One quick sidebar on this topic - don't waste any more time trying to make your web pages work for browsers that don't support HTML5 - it's self-defeating and can, in many instances actually harm your position in SERP's. — Michalis Kotzakolios

The idea of vaudeville clowns and court jesters is always to show the flaw, to point out what's not working and why it's not coherent. — John Baldessari

I'm ready to forgive him for the desire to be a king, but not for wanting to have 23 million court jesters. — Minimaks

So it was with court jesters in the Middle Ages; they could alert the king to dangers that the ministers would not dare to comment on because they were afraid of losing their positions. — Paulo Coelho

Which is why we cannot say of the purloined letter that, like other objects, it must be or not be in a particular place but that unlike them it will be and not be where it is, wherever it goes. — Jacques Lacan

First of all I express sincerity. There's also that sense of humor, by which people sometimes learn to laugh about themselves. I mean, the situation is so serious that the people could go crazy because of it. They need to smile and realize how ridiculous everything is. A race without a sense of humor is in bad shape. A race needs clowns. In earlier days people knew that. Kings always had a court jester around. In that way he was always reminded how ridiculous things are. I believe that nations too should have jesters, in the congress, near the president, everywhere ... You could call me the jester of the Creator. The whole world, all the disease and misery, it's all ridiculous. — Sun Ra

I think there's something in common with the OSS 117 movies. The big difference is there's no irony in this one. It's not parody. I tried to make it very simple. It's a simple story, but to be simple, it's very complex in the way it's done. — Michel Hazanavicius

The more intelligible a thing is, the more easily it is retained in the memory, and counterwise, the less intelligible it is, the more easily we forget it. — Baruch Spinoza

There is this false perception that comedians can never be serious. It's like from like the era of court jesters. — Jim Gaffigan

For the gods, though slow to see, see well, whenever a man casting aside worship turns folly. — Sophocles

Oftentimes, actors are looked at as court jesters. They are not looked at as deep-thinking, smart people who do many other things or have gifts in other areas. — Goldie Hawn

Don't limit yourself, discover new areas of expertise — Sunday Adelaja

Regret is the most tiresome of companions. — Richard Paul Evans

You know when you get the whisper of a melody in your head, or the murmur of a song? And you have the gut feeling that if you could just hear the rest of it, just capture the music" - the need an ache as frustrating as it was piercing - "you'd have something fucking amazing?" Noah nodded. "Yeah well, that's what it feels like with Molly." The most compelling whisper of his life. "I'm not about to walk away from that. — Nalini Singh

Our society, like decadent Rome, has turned into an amusement society, with writers chief among the court jesters — Saul Bellow

You have my word. — Anonymous

As for the petty little world of journalism, the media demonstrates how it, more than anyone, is careful to traffic only in authorized ideas and wares; while at the same time it fosters, through its antics, the illusion of a free circulation of ideas and opinions - not unlike jesters in a tyrant's court. — Robert Faurisson

If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters. We are Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins make us seem harmless. — Bruce Sterling

There is no one force, no group, and no class that is the preserver of liberty. Liberty is preserved by those who are against the existing chief power. Oppositions which do not express genuine social forces are as trivial, in relation to entrenched power, as the old court jesters. — James Burnham