Fool Of Yourself Quotes & Sayings

But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise! — George MacDonald

7. But what kind of love is it, really? Don't fool yourself and call it sublimity. Admit that you have stood in front of a little pile of powdered ultramarine pigment in a glass cup at a museum and felt a stinging desire. But to do what? Liberate it? Purchase it? Ingest it? ... You might want to reach out and disturb the pile of pigment, for example, first staining your fingers with it, then staining the world. You might want to dilute it and swim in it, you might want to rouge your nipples with it, you might want to paint a virgin's robe with it. But still you wouldn't be accessing the blue of it. Not exactly. — Maggie Nelson

You can fool a lot of the people some of the time, and a few of the people most of the time, but the only person you can fool all of the time is yourself. — Bruce T. Clark

Connie went slowly home to Wragby. 'Home!'...it was a warm word to use for that great, weary warren. But then it was a word that had had its day. It was somehow cancelled. All the great words, it seemed to Connie, were cancelled for her generation: love, joy, happiness, home, mother, father, husband, all these great, dynamic words were half dead now, and dying from day to day. Home was a place you lived in, love was a thing you didn't fool yourself about, joy was a word you applied to a good Charleston, happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people, a father was an individual who enjoyed his own existence, a husband was a man you lived with and kept going in spirits. As for sex, the last of the great words, it was just a cocktail term for an excitement that bucked you up for a while, then left you more raggy than ever. Frayed! It was as if the very material you were made of was cheap stuff, and was fraying out to nothing. — D.H. Lawrence

The old school of thought would have you believe that you'd be a fool to take on nature without arming yourself with every conceivable measure of safety and comfort under the sun. But that isn't what being in nature is all about. Rather, it's about feeling free, unbounded, shedding the distractions and barriers of our civilization - not bringing them with us. — Ryel Kestenbaum

You lie even to yourself. Now that is the mark of a fool. — Alison Goodman

After he and this girl split up in Paris, Roger was on the town; really on the town. He joked about it and made fun of himself; but he was very angry inside for having made such a profound fool of himself and he took his talent for being faithful to people, which was the best one he had, next to the ones for painting and writing and his various good human and animal traits, and beat and belaboured that talent miserably. He was no good to anyone when he was on the town, especially to himself, and he knew it and hated it and he took pleasure in pulling down the pillars of the temple. It was a very good and strongly built temple and when it is constructed inside yourself it is not so easy to pull down. But he did as good a job as he could. — Ernest Hemingway,

For me, I believe comedy's about taking risks, taking chances, working in a safe environment where you're comfortable making a fool of yourself. It's so critical, especially in comedy, to just have all those right pieces in place. — Michael Spiller

You see and hear that they lie," said Ivan Ivanovitch, turning over on the other side, "and they call you a fool for putting up with their lying. You endure insult and humiliation, and dare not openly say that you are on the side of the honest and the free, and you lie and smile yourself; and all that for the sake of a crust of bread, for the sake of a warm corner, for the sake of a wretched little worthless rank in the service. No, one can't go on living like this. — Anton Chekhov

Interpreting the Bible without training is a bit like finding a specific address in a foreign city with neither map nor knowledge of the language. You might stumble upon the right answer, but in the meantime you've put yourself at the mercy of every ignoramus in town, with no way of telling the savant from the fool. — Laurie R. King

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf, And the world makes you King for a day, Then go to the mirror and look at yourself, And see what that guy has to say. For it isn't your Father, or Mother, or Wife, Whose judgement upon you must pass. The feller whose verdict counts most in your life Is the guy staring back from the glass. He's the feller to please, never mind all the rest, For he's with you clear up to the end, And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test If the guy in the glass is your friend. You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum, And think you're a wonderful guy, But the man in the glass says you're only a bum If you can't look him straight in the eye. You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years, And get pats on the back as you pass, But your final reward will be heartaches and tears If you've cheated the guy in the glass. Dale Wimbrow — Shawn Jones

What you learn in any acting class is how to make a fool of yourself and enjoy things and get out of your head. — Aya Cash

There's a fleeting moment that exists for every individual just before they do something truly life-altering. Its that flash of insight and sanity that stalls your heartbeat and bloo flow - a quick warning - just before you explode and make a fool of yourself. Or that incredible brief instant of clarity you have before you floor the gas pedal and run the red light. It's a split second of self admonishment in which you realise that what you're about to do is wrong, but just as quickly choose to ignore that realisation and do it anyway. It's too fast to catch, too bright to see, utterly gone even before you've blinked and therefore, it does a person absolutely no good at all. And yet, there it is. — Heather Killough-Walden

Do you see why I avoid humans, ma cherie? They are silly, exasperating creatures.
You like him.You can't hide it from me, even if you try to hide it from yourself. Invite him home.
Not for all the trees on this earth.
I want to meet him.
Savannah. She was up to no good, he was certain of it. Gregori's hand went to the back of his neck, massaging deeply. What I should do is scare the holy hell out of him so he will get over this nonsense.
"So,are you?" Gary asked.
"Am I what?" Gregori was distracted. Why had he ever talked to this fool in the first place? Because Savannah was making him crazy. Savannah had made him do something dumb. He had read Gary's mind and found him to be an interesting, likeable person.
Don't blame me. She sounded innocent. — Christine Feehan

You go from these high hopes when you're writing to just a desperate want of not making a complete fool of yourself by the end of it. — Rian Johnson

In a drama, you don't make a fool of yourself. — Peter Scolari

There are times when it's easier to fool yourself than swallow some jagged piece of reality. — John Searles

So how did you end up making a fool of yourself in front of twenty thousand people?
I had a bigger hole to fill.
What do you mean?
A rock star is someone with a hole in his heart almost the size of his ego. — Michka Assayas

The point is that if you think you can pinpoint the cause, then you can fool yourself into thinking you can avert the cause. It's deeply egotistical. It's life played as a grand insurance policy. Our myth-making around cancer stems from the same impulse. Because we don't know exactly why most of it happens, we weave a makeshift wisdom around it, a false prophet, which seeps into the common story and feeds our hunger to understand why. The guilt is a byproduct, a way to assign blame and seek absolution. It's a lesser evil than the forces of randomness. And it gives us the illusion of control. — Alanna Mitchell

The first thing you have to get used to in any kind of acting is the ability to make a fool of yourself. If you haven't learnt how to make a fool of yourself, you shouldn't be on the boards. That's absolutely what it's all about. — John Hurt

Giving one another the rather embarrassed grins of people who know that they've just been part of a synchronized making-a-fool-of-yourself team. — Terry Pratchett

Laurie picks up a briefcase and places it on the table. He opens the lid and his head disappears under the top. Oh god. Is he about to introduce me to a cat of nine tails, or some bizarre tickling stick? Brace yourself Liz. Cate told you to always carry your pepper spray, you fool. — LeeAnn Whitaker

And then there are always clever people about to promise you that everything will be all right if only you put yourself out a bit... And you get carried away, you suffer so much from the things that exist that you ask for what can't ever exist. Now look at me, I was well away dreaming like a fool and seeing visions of a nice friendly life on good terms with everybody, and off I went, up into the clouds. And when you fall back into the mud it hurts a lot. No! None of it was true, none of those things we thought we could see existed at all. All that was really there was still more misery-- oh yes! as much of that as you like-- and bullets into the bargain! — Emile Zola

I want to reach people and express myself. You have to put up with the risk of being misunderstood if you are going to try to communicate. You have to put up with people projecting their own ideas, attitudes, misunderstanding you. But it's worth being a public fool if that's all you can be in order to communicate yourself. — Edie Sedgwick

Is there something you are allowing to escape your grasp or to expire that was clearly within our reach? Are you stuck with the mentality that if God wants you to have it, He'll give it to you? Or if its meant to be, it will be? Don't fool yourself; Nothing just happens! There is a cause and effect to everything in life and you need to be an active participant in the creation of your destiny. Becoming a silent partner with God is still not enough because faith without works is dead. — Dwaun S. Cox

You can lie to yourself and fool yourself and rationalize that the choice you're making is what is right and what is true and what leads to liberation, when it's actually only the fulfillment of desire. — Frederick Lenz

You're lying to yourself. Voron made us into serial killers. We can be okay without violence for a few weeks, but after a couple of months, the hand starts itching for the sword. You start looking for that rush. You get irritable, life turns stale, and then one day some fool crosses your path, attacks, and as you cut him down, you feel that short moment of struggle when he leverages his life against yours. If you're lucky, he's very good and the fight lasts a few seconds. But even if it doesn't, that short moment of triumph is like getting an adrenaline shot. Suddenly color comes back into life, food tastes better, sleep is deeper, and sex is rapture.
I knew exactly what he was talking about. I lived it and I felt it. — Ilona Andrews

You can fool people. You can fool anybody anytime of the day, but you can't fool yourself. At night, when you go home, you've got to be straight up with you. — Whitney Houston

rejoice and make a fool of yourself for God the way lovers have always made fools of themselves for the one they love." - Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words — Richard J. Foster

Some of his colleagues and a few of his students claimed to have been moved so by a book that they had read it again and again. Who were they? Of what were they made? Were they dissembling? Perhaps he was a fool, but he thought that if a work were truly great you would only have to read it once and you would be stolen from yourself, desperately moved, changed forever. It would become part of you and never leave, and you would love the characters as if they were your own. Who would want to plough over ground that has been perfectly ploughed? Would it not be, like living one's life again, infinitely painful and dissonant? — Mark Helprin

We all grasp on to a single idea of ourselves, the way aging people dye their hair. It's no matter that this dye doesn't fool you. My lady, you don't dye your hair to decieve other people, or to fool yourself, but rather to cheat your image in your mirror a little. — Luigi Pirandello

To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself. — Anne Rice

You are not a fool," he whispered. "You can never be a fool. You're total class from top to toe. You're also a klutz. Own that, baby, because it's cute and because it's you. If you learn to accept yourself just as you are, learn to laugh at your quirks instead of hating them, show the world all that's you without tryin' to hide things that are not even a little unattractive, that makes you more attractive. What you got is a fuckuva lot. You own all of it and let it all hang out, you'll go off-the-charts. — Kristen Ashley

Never be afraid to make a fool of yourself. The furthest out you can go is the best place to be. — Tom Robbins

When I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: 'Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.' I should actually want my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick. — Christopher Hitchens

WHISPERS OF LOVE
Lover whispers to my ear,
Better to be a prey than a hunter.
Make yourself My fool.
Stop trying to be the sun and become a speck!
Dwell at My door and be homeless.
Don't pretend to be a candle, be a moth,
so you may taste the savor of Life
and know the power hidden in serving. — Rumi

Don't you ever do that to me."
"You know you'll never make as much of a fool of yourself as Horatio Augustus. So I won't have to. — Elizabeth Wein

If I can't laugh at the fool I am I'll despair at the beast I am. You must laugh at yourself, Michael."
"I expect you're right," he said. "One must come out on the other side of despair before one can find that stony sanctuary."
"And laughing at yourself gives you freedom."
"From what?" asked Michael grimly.
"From hating yourself. One can be just as self-engrossed in self-hatred as self-love, and either way be as blind to the quality of those about you ... — Elizabeth Goudge

There is a fool you feel when somebody is saying they are sorry for doing something to you. It is worse than if you had done something yourself. So you are having the worst of it twice, start and finish. — Richard Llewellyn

The world always makes sure that you cannot fool yourself for long about who you really think you are by showing you what truly matters to you. How you react to people and situations, especially when challenges arise, is the best indicator of how deeply you know yourself. — Eckhart Tolle

Reading is human contact, and the range of our human contacts is what makes us what we are. Just imagine you live the life of a long-distance truck driver. The books that you read are like the travelers you take into your cab. If you give lifts to people who are cultured and profound, you'll learn a lot from them. If you pick up fools, you'll turn into a fool yourself. — Victor Pelevin

You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thing of all. — Jodi Picoult

You can fool a lot of yourself but you can't fool the soul. — Mary Oliver

Its funny how you can let yourself forget for seconds, how even in the heat of the horrible, you can have moments when you fool yourself into thinking it might all be okay — Harlan Coben

I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something. How careful you have to be about checking your experiments. How easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself. I know what it means to know something. — Richard P. Feynman

Because the Legs wasn't fearful of heights or swimming in rough water or Death itself she wasn't afraid to risk making a fool of herself. Maybe you think that's something of no consequence but it isn't - for making a fool of yourself, offering yourself to others to laugh at, to jeer, that takes guts. — Joyce Carol Oates

Suddenly he was in the doorway, looming over her in a determined fashion. Gone was sweet, patient Griffin. This was the Duke of Greythorne, one of the most powerful men in England.
"I don't care that you came to Dandy," he said, his voice low, but sharp. "If you want to blame yourself for Sam's injury, then go ahead and be a fool. And I don't care that you could cosh my head in if you wanted. I came here to get you and if I have to, I'll toss you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carry you all the way to Mayfair. I'm taking you home where you belong. — Kady Cross

When someone's acting for a scene, they can fool the camera. But in everyday life, unless you're watching and censoring yourself every minute, or spending all your time in the company of ladies, what you feel is bound to show in your eyes. — Cesar Romero

You're never too old to make a fool of yourself — Michael Perkins

My Seryozha. My holy little fool. You've spent these last few years working so hard to become an asshole. Despite your best efforts, you're becoming a man instead. And I know you want to become so great an asshole that centuries from now people will speak of wiping their Sergeis. But you're not an asshole. You're my son. So when you want to disgrace yourself, remember, little one, that you are all of your father's pride. — Anthony Marra

You see if you tell yourself the same tale over and over again enough times then the tellings become separate stories and you will generally fool yourself into forgetting you started with one solitary season out of your life. — Kaye Gibbons

I walked across the snowy plain of the Tiergarten - a smashed statue here, a newly planted sapling there; the Brandenburger Tor, with its red flag flapping against the blue winter sky; and on the horizon, the great ribs of a gutted railway station, like the skeleton of a whale. In the morning light it was all as raw and frank as the voice of history which tells you not to fool yourself; this can happen to any city, to anyone, to you. — Christopher Isherwood

They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. — Bob Marley

But there are times in life when a door opens and you are offered a glimpse of the light on the water, and you know that if you don't take it, that door slams shut, and maybe forever. Maybe you fool yourself into thinking that you had a choice at all; maybe you were always going to say yes. Maybe refusing was no more a choice than is holding your breath. You were always going to breathe. You were always going to say yes. — Graham Joyce

Who was I fooling, telling my heart to quiet its beautiful song so I could march in the parade of conformity? My biggest fool was me. — Vironika Tugaleva

Revenge is good. I think revenge is healthy too, and if you can use music in that way, a sort of therapeutic way for yourself, it can't do any harm. So if King (For A Day ... Fool For A Lifetime) is angry in any way, it's angry in a random, chaotic, healthy way. Like the guy who goes into a building, shoots a bunch of holes in the wall and then leaves. He didn't kill anybody. — Mike Patton

Because any fool knows that to work hard at something you want to accomplish is the only way to be happy. But beyond that it is entirely up to you. You've got to do for yourself all the seeking and finding concerned with what you want to do. Anyone but yourself is useless to you there. — Eugene O'Neill

Relationships based on dishonesty, lies,
Secrets and cheats R not only predicted
to fail but also a waste of precious time
and energie! U can't fool yourself 4ever! — Lily Amis

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) said, "The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too." 7 — Adele Von Rust McCormick

The journey towards the top of the mountain is always longer than you think. Don't fool yourself: the moment will come where what seemed to be close to you is in fact still very far away. — Paulo Coelho

You should never read just for "enjoyment." Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends' insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick "hard books." Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for god's sake, don't let me ever hear you say, "I can't read fiction. I only have time for the truth." Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of "literature"? That means fiction, too, stupid. — John Waters

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause by yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others - playing people against one another, making them pursue you. — Robert Greene

Think of yourself as an insensitive, nitpicking, irritable fool to use the product. — Ma Huateng

If you're going to publish a book, you probably are going to make a fool of yourself. — Annie Dillard

Most people don't know what they're talking about. They move their mouth and say things because they don't want to admit they don't know. Or they think they know, but it's just confabulation and biases. So ignore them unless what they say resonates with some real wisdom inside of you. Assume they're a fool and find out the truth for yourself. — Derek Sivers

You should remind yourself that what you love is mortal, that what you love is not your own. It is granted to you the present while, and not irrevocably, nor for ever, but like a fig or a bunch of grapes in the appointed season and if you long for it in the winter, you are a fool. — Louise Doughty

Starling lowered her voice, but it carried anyway. "He is FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry the Abdicated. And you are the Fool."
"Once, perhaps, I was the Fool. It is common knowledge here in Jhaampe. But now I am the Toymaker. As I no longer use the other title, you may take it for yourself if you wish. As for Tom, I believe he takes the title Bed Bolster these days."
"I will be seeing the Queen about this."
"A wise decision. If you wish to become her Fool, she is certainly the one you must see. But for now, let me show you something else. No, step back, please, so you can see it all. Here it comes." I heard the slam and the latch. "The outside of my door," the Fool announced gladly. "I painted it myself. Do you like it? — Robin Hobb

To be full of yourself is to make a fool of yourself. — Ashly Lorenzana

Look, at the same time that I don't want to be a celebrity, I understand that when you make movies you put yourself out in the public eye. I'd be a baby and a fool to be like, 'Why are there cameras taking pictures of me?' when I'm on a billboard for a movie. I think that's a very absurd concept. — Jonah Hill

You can learn technological things, you can learn about specific things, but the real problems that people deal with in any subject, existential subjects or romantic subjects, you never learn anything. So you make a fool of yourself when you're 20, you make a fool of yourself at 40, at 60 at 80. The ancient Greeks were dealing with these problems. They screwed up all the time. People do now. — Woody Allen

Well, I can understand how you feel. You worked hard, studying for the spelling bee, and I suppose you feel you let everyone down, and you made a fool of yourself and everything. But did you notice something, Charlie Brown?"
"What's that?"
"The world didn't come to an end. — Charles M. Schulz

There are quite a few things I've done that even I thought might have been one step too far. But if you are willing to make a fool of yourself and make people smile, as long as you do it with a sense of fun, you can get away with it. — Richard Branson

It's no good pacing up and down. It won't make the plane arrive any faster. Just sit down and accept that we're delayed. You're just making a fool of yourself. — Noel Coward

To say nothing of what you lose, lose, lose, are losing, man. You fool, you stupid fool ... You've even been insulated from the responsibility of genuine suffering ... Even the suffering you do endure is largely unnecessary. Actually spurious. It lacks the very basis you require of it for its tragic nature. You deceive yourself. — Malcolm Lowry

(Hadley and Mary in the Garden at Blanchard House)
He laughed, a harsh sound, all sign of humor leaving his eyes. "Don't let any of it fool you, my dear, for even the most tarnished silver can acquire a fine and gleaming polish. And believe me, there is far more tarnish here than an innocent and unschooled eye such as yours can discern."
"Why would you speak so of yourself?" Mary protested.
He reached for a red-gold curl that had escaped her lace cap and coiled it around his !nger. "I would forewarn you, Miss Edwardes that I am a man, and men in general are not to be trusted ... " He held her gaze as he slowly released the ringlet, allowing his fingers to skim her cheek. " ... especially not by pretty young virgins. — Victoria Vane

The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor. — Stephen King

The world is a jungle and each of us is alone. Each of us is the hunter and every one is the hunted. Kill or be killed. In this jungle, only the smartest will survive. Your brother is smart, you are not. You are a fool, filled with stupid notions of duty. Unless you cure yourself of this disease, you are doomed. — Anand Neelakantan

Fool! The Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself: thy Condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of: what matters whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the Form thou give it be heroic, be poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee, 'here or nowhere,' couldst thou only see! — Thomas Carlyle

Remember when we met? Before you left, you said you were going to make a fool of yourself over me. That's still what you're worried about. That you'll find yourself doing things you never dreamed of doing, things you laughed at in others, and you'll make a fool of yourself. — Kelley Armstrong

If you want to be a yogi, you must be free, and place yourself in circumstances where you are alone and free from all anxiety. One who desires a comfortable and nice life and at the same time wants to realize the Self is like the fool who, wanting to cross the river, caught hold of a crocodile, mistaking it for a log of wood. — Swami Vivekananda

When you've just made the most complete fool of yourself, you feel the need of a specially high horse to ride. — Patricia Wentworth

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. — Cynthia Heimel

Youth makes you brave, I suppose. When you're young, you make a fool of yourself all the time. Because of all the rejections and the criticism you get all the time, there has to be a drive there. — Shirley Henderson

I regret that [my grandfather] never saw the book. i had finished the third draft of what turned out to be five, but I had decided to wait until the novel was perfect before I gave it to him to read. What a fool I am. If you will forgive the one piece of advice a writer is qualified to give: never be afraid of showing someone you love a working draft of yourself. — Chris Cleave

But life is too short not to make a fool out of yourself from time to time. And sometimes you need to make an ass out of yourself, just to see what you are capable of doing next. Life isn't just about pushing your limits and seeing what you're made of in the face of adversity. Sometimes it's about getting embarrassed and feeling humiliated and seeing where you can go from there. — Abby Rosmarin

Home was a place you lived, love was a thing you didn't fool yourself about, joy was a word that applied to a good Charleston, happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people, a father was an individual who enjoyed his own existence, a husband was a man you lived with and kept going in spirits. — D.H. Lawrence

If you make a fool of yourself in front of a cat, he will sneer at you, if you are sober; he will leave the room if you are drunk. If you make a fool of yourself in front a dog, he will make a fool of himself, too. — Chuck Jones

No matter how great your wisdom, you can still make a fool of yourself. — James Cook

If you make a fool of yourself, you can do it with dignity, without taking your pants down. And if you do take your pants down, you can still do it with dignity. — William Shatner

I do not diminish his love for me,' Imogen said. 'I would never do that. I know precisely how much he loved me: as much as he was capable of loving any woman, probably. He loved me somewhat ... after his stables, perhaps more than his mother.'
'Oh, Imogen,' Annabel said. 'Why dwell on such a-'
'Grief is like that!' Imogen snapped. 'You can only fool yourself so far. — Eloisa James

Come out of the fog, young man. And remember you don't have to be a complete fool in order to succeed. Play the game, but don't believe in it--that much you owe yourself. Even if it lands you in a strait jacket or a padded cell. Play the game, but play it your own way--part of the time at least. Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how you operate--I wish I had time to tell you only a fragment. — Ralph Ellison

With age, you see people fail more. You see yourself fail more. How do you keep that fearlessness of a kid? You keep going. Luckily, I'm not afraid to make a fool of myself. — Hugh Jackman

So whatever you want to do, just do it ... Making a damn fool of yourself is absolutely essential. — Gloria Steinem

Don't let religious-sounding reluctance fool you. When you plead "unworthy" and refuse to be served by God, you place your judgment about yourself above God's. You say you would prefer to go it alone, and you imply that your unworthiness goes beyond the scope of God's mercy and grace. You must think that God cleanses you only from ordinary sins, not from the spectacular ones. — Edward T. Welch

If we are still suffering, how can we teach other to be free? Ajahn Chah replied, 'First of all, be very honest. Don't pretend that you are wise in ways you are not. Tell people how you are yourself. And then take the measure of things. In weightlifting, if you're strong, you know that through practice you can lift a really big weight. Maybe you've seen someone lift a weight bigger than you can. You can tell your students, 'If you practice, you can lift that big weight, but don't try it yet. I can't even do it, but I've seen people do it.' Be willing to express what is possible without trying to fool someone that you've done it. — Jack Kornfield

The first thing every mage should learn is that magic makes fools of us. Now you may call yourself a mage. You have learned the most important lesson. — Tamora Pierce

When you push someone's head under water for 5 minutes, they will drown. It doesn't matter if the person is a sinner or a saint. It's just a natural process. If their head is under water, the lack of oxygen will make them drown. That rule applies to everyone, good or bad, equally. It doesn't matter if the drowning person has strong moral fiber.
And it doesn't matter if you're a good or a bad person, once you become addicted to drugs. What happens next is inevitable. It's a natural process that happens in everyone's brain, once the drugs take over. So don't ever fool yourself into thinking that only weak or bad people get addicted. — Oliver Markus

Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself — Charlie Chaplin

You can't fool yourself anymore that your art is your art. When you're not getting paid for that song that's being traded back and forth among millions of people on the Internet, you have to think like a businessperson. — Ann Powers

Half the art of ballooning is to make your crashes so gentle that you can fool yourself into calling them landings. — Richard Branson