Fatuus Quotes & Sayings

Besides, I always thought that one of the great attractions of practising law was what I like to call the collegiality of the profession and I think that duty of collegiality applies even when we are retired. — Len G. Murray

The SAT is a scam. — John Katzman

The abdication of Belief
Makes the Behavior small-
Better an ignis fatuus
Than no illume at all. — Emily Dickinson

It does good to no woman to be flattered [by a man] who does not intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis-fatuus-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication. — Charlotte Bronte

Love Means Not Ever Having To Say You're Sorry. — Erich Segal

Familiarity with your lover is what initially makes sex really good. — Susie Bright

I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it. — Charles Bukowski

Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly; and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it. — John Adams

The Ignis Fatuus is a vapor shining without heat. — Isaac Newton

They ate and moved on, leaving the fire on the ground behind them, and as they rode up into the mountains this fire seemed to become altered of its location, now here, now there, drawing away, or shifting unaccountably along the flank of their movement. Like some ignis fatuus belated upon the road behind them which all could see and of which none spoke. For this will to deceive that is in things luminous may manifest itself likewise in retrospect and so by sleight of some fixed part of a journey already accomplished may also post men to fraudulent destinies. As — Cormac McCarthy

The biggest challenge facing the great teachers and communicators of history is not to teach history itself, nor even the lessons of history, but why history matters. How to ignite the first spark of the will o'the wisp, the Jack o'lantern, the ignis fatuus [foolish fire] beloved of poets, which lights up one source of history and then another, zigzagging across the marsh, connecting and linking and writing bright words across the dark face of the present. There's no phrase I can come up that will encapsulate in a winning sound-bite why history matters. We know that history matters, we know that it is thrilling, absorbing, fascinating, delightful and infuriating, that it is life. Yet I can't help wondering if it's a bit like being a Wagnerite; you just have to get used to the fact that some people are never going to listen. — Stephen Fry