Folk Wisdom Quotes & Sayings

Folk wisdom in software development teaches that interfaces shouldn't be unduly influenced by implementations. Writing a test first is a concrete way to achieve this separation. — Kent Beck

I do not admire 'the people,' as such. No one really does. Their folk wisdom is usually false, their instincts predatory. Even their sense of survival - so highly developed in the individual - goes berserk in the mass. A crowd is a fool. — Gore Vidal

There must be some wisdom in the folk saying: Its the strong swimmers who drown. — Charlie Munger

People must know who dem be, must remember what important." - Tanty to Nikki in Oh Gad! — Joanne C. Hillhouse

You know how people always talk about how vision is the key to entrepreneurship and perseverance and really seeing what other people don't see? We can actually redeem a fair amount of that folk wisdom. — Eric Ries

I have long admired Ron Whitehead. He is crazy as nine loons, and his poetry is a dazzling mix of folk wisdom and pure mathematics — Hunter S. Thompson

Without books, everything would have been crooked. Without books, the wisdom in books today would have been fairy and folk tales. Without books the whole truth about life would have been imaginations and a guessing game — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Charity is the pure love of Christ. Let's bring it down for us lay folk to understand. Selflessness, patience ... a great definition ... Charity: The ability to love the sinner and hate the sin. Note: For Hyrum Smith's other ideas which he regards as pertinent to Success, see Topics: Character, Charity, Goals, Humility, Peace of Mind, Sacrifice, Success-Change-Personal Growth, Success-Change-Constructive Imagination, Wisdom — Hyrum W. Smith

So them who can't learn from a tale about critters, just ain't got the ears tuned to listen."
-Uncle Remus in Disney's Song of the South — Jim Korkis

From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World's Child, Who in the language of their farm field spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk. — John Greenleaf Whittier

Proverbs save us the trouble of thinking. What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity. — Edward Abbey

Matthew knew that phrenology was nonsense, and yet, years later, he found himself making judgments similar to those made by his father; slippery people looked slippery; they really did. And how we become like our parents! How their scorned advice - based, we felt in our superiority, on prejudiced and muddled folk wisdom - how their opinions are subsequently borne out by our own discoveries and sense of the world, one after one. And as this happens, we realise with increasing horror that proposition which we would never have entertained before: our mothers were right! — Alexander McCall Smith

Why Do I Love You. Sir?

'Why do I love'You. Sir?
Because-
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer-Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.

Because He knows-and
Do not You-
And We know not-
Enough for Us
The wisdom it be so-

The Lightning-never asked an Eye
Wherefore it struck-when He was by
Because He knows it cannot speak-
And reason not contained-
-Of Talk-
There he preferred by Daintier Folk-

The Sunrise-Sir-compelleth Me-
Because He's Sunrise-and I see-
Therefore-Then-
I love Thee- — Emily Dickinson

I always wish for the same thing. a boyfriend, someone to love or love me. This year, I think I'm going to wish for something else. The wisdom and the maturity to realise that I won't find what I want by looking for it, not expect someone else to give me what I never gave myself, that I'm not a half, waiting to be made a whole, and even if that special person never comes along, I'll be just fine. — Ted Schmidt

For no matter whether the fairies are seen metaphorically or as real beings inhabiting their own real world, a study of them shows us that those who came before us (and many of that mindset still survive) realized that we are
no matter what we may think to the contrary
very little creatures, here for a short time only ('passing through,' as the old people say) and that we have no right to destroy what the next generation will most assuredly need to also see itself through.
If only we could learn that lesson, maybe someday we might be worthy of the wisdom of those who knew that to respect the Good People is basically to respect yourself. — Eddie Lenihan

Some folk learned the nature of God, that He was merciful, having spared a husband or some cattle, that He was strict, having meted out hard punishment for small sins, that He was attentive, having sent signs of the hunger beforehand, that He was just, having sent the hunger in the first place, or having sent the whales and the teeming reindeer in the end. Some folk learned that He was to be found in the world-in the richness of the grass and the pearly beauty of the Heavens, and others learned that He could not be found in the world, for the world is always wanting, and God is completion. — Jane Smiley

As with many other folk beliefs, 'feng-shui' undoubtedly incorporates some scientifically correct observation or received wisdom based on direct experience of natural phenomena; but it needs to be dealt with skeptically as a credible system of thought. Some feng-shui prescriptions can certainly lead to desirable results. — Martin Filler

Folk wisdom: quaint sayings of urban sophisticates compiled from the suburbs. — Bauvard

These things happen in threes,' said Milly in her way of uttering bits of folk-wisdom; she was spooning tea into the heated teapot. She always mixed tea with maxims. — Muriel Spark

Like revenge, the fantasy of forgiveness often becomes a cruel torture, because it remains out of reach for most ordinary human beings. Folk wisdom recognizes that to forgive is divine. And even divine forgiveness, in most religious systems, is not unconditional. True forgiveness cannot be granted until the perpetrator has sought and earned it through confession, repentance, and restitution. — Judith Lewis Herman

Except for the shapes of the windows, backlit by the streetlights that dotted the perimeter of the Moosetookalook town square, Liss could see very little in the darkness of the room she shared with her husband. The two front windows were raised as far as they would go, since Liss had been taught at an early age that fresh air was one of nature's best sleep aids. She had never had any reason to doubt that small bit of folk wisdom. — Kaitlyn Dunnett

The mass of mankind, Burke implies, reason hardly at all, in the higher sense, nor ever can: deprived of folk-wisdom and folk-law, which are prejudice and prescription, they can do no more than cheer the demagogue, enrich the charlatan, and submit to the despot. — Russell Kirk

Buddhist say that thoughts are like drops of water on the brain; when you reinforce the same thought, it will etch a new stream into your consciousness, like water eroding the side of a mountain. Scientist confirm this bit of folk wisdom: our neurons break connections and form new pathways all the time. Even if you've been programmed to fear death, that particular pathway isn't set in stone. Each of us is responsible for seeking out new knowledge and creating mental circuits. — Caitlin Doughty

The author says that one of the difficulties of modern parenting is the uncertainty of what parents are preparing children for. In traditional societies this was clear, as parents prepared children for a society and for roles much like their own. She writes, There is no folk wisdom. — Jennifer Senior