Only A Fool Quotes & Sayings

Only a fool trips on what is behind him. — Iceberg Slim

No man can expect to find a friend without faults; nor can he propose himself to be so to another. Without reciprocal mildness and temperance there can be no continuance of friendship. Every man will have something to do for his friend, and something to bear with in him. The sober man only can do the first; and for the latter, patience is requisite. It is better for a man to depend on himself, than to be annoyed with either a madman or a fool. — Owen Feltham

Only a fool is always right. — Peprah Boasiako

There was something she wasn't telling me, but I had to trust her - only a fool ignores a local guide. "Okay, — Jasper Fforde

When it comes to money, you can't win. If you focus on making it, you're materialistic. If you try to but don't make any, you're a loser. If you make a lot and keep it, you're a miser. If you make it and spend it, you're a spendthrift. If you don't care about making it, you're unambitious. If you make a lot and still have it when you die, you're a fool-for trying to take it with you. The only way to really win with money is to hold it loosely-and be generous with it to accomplish things of value. — John C. Maxwell

Only a fool would turn away the love of a good woman, and I was no longer a fool. — Christin Lovell

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria. — Rick Riordan

A man who examines the saddle and bridle and not the animal itself when he is out to buy a horse is a fool; similarly, only an absolute fool values a man according to his clothes, or according to his position, which after all is only something we wear like clothing. — Seneca The Younger

You must think I'm a fool to even consider rejecting him.'
'My lady, I am a professional fool. I can say with certainty that you do not have the makings of one.'
She smirked. 'Then that's a relief.'
'Is it? Have you something against fools?'
'Not at all. Only, if I were as natural at foolishness as I am at poetry, I might try to take your position from you, and you seem so very well suited to it. — Marissa Meyer

Only a fool would cross a night traveler. — Kathleen O'Neal Gear

The fool says 'I never intended to kill. I meant only to wound.' But I tell you that if you prick a finger with a poisoned thorn you may not claim innocence when the heart dies. Do not plant a weed and pretend surprise when it grows to strangle your garden. For, I tell you that hate is to kill, for from hatred grows death as surely as life grows from love. Therefore do not nurture hatred, but love, even for those who hate you in return. Hatred wins many battles, and yet love will triumph. — Michael Grant

I have memories - but only a fool stores his past in the future — David Gerrold

One minute I'm robbing a dope house. Next minute I'm the youngest heavyweight champion of the world. I'm only 20, 19, with a lot of money. Who am I? What am I? I don't even know who I am. I'm just a dumb child who's being abused and robbed by lawyers. I'm just a dumb pugnacious fool. I'm just a fool who thinks he's someone. Then you tell me I should be responsible. — Mike Tyson

Only a fool makes threats he's not prepared to carry out. If I were to threaten to hit you unless you shut your mouth, and you presumed to speak, what do you think I'd do? — George R R Martin

Concentrate and think upon the problem in mind until a satisfactory conclusion is reached, and then finally go ahead. If you have made a mistake, all right. Never find fault with a man because he has made a mistake. It is only a fool that makes the same mistake the second time. — Charles M. Schwab

Only a fool would underestimate a man with nothing to lose. — Lance Conrad

If the majority doesn't laugh at you, beware that you must be saying something wrong. When the majority thinks you are a fool, only then is there some possibility of you being a wise man. — Laozi

Only a fool demands proof of what he already knows. — Stephen R. Lawhead

If I am a fool then it is no misfortune, for then only one more fool will wander this Earth. Amongst the millions of mentally deranged it would barely be noticed. But what if I am not a fool, and that science itself has erred? Then the tragedy is incalculable! — Viktor Schauberger

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times. — John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

This building fool could only be Bess of Hardwicke, a woman whose name is seldom seen in print without the word "redoubtable" in front of it. I wondered if anyone ever called her redoubtable to her face. I redoubted it. — JoAnn Spears

I believe in God because only an idiot can look at the complex balance of nature and believe that has not been designed. Believe it or not, but some people still believe that a watch can make itself out of sand if you just give it enough time. That's what they call evolution. And you wonder why I am cynical. From my point of view you have to be a fool not to be cynical. — Ted Dekker

Only a fool tries to outsmart smart people, and anyone that tries to fool fools is himself already one. — William Faulkner

The fashionable idiocy that haters must have justifications is one of those ideas that George Orwell said only an intellectual could believe
because no one else could be such a fool. — Thomas Sowell

Just is not by other men of intelligence that an intelligent an is afraid of being thought a fool, so it is not by the great gentleman but by boors and 'bounders' that a man of fashion is afraid of finding his social value underrated. Three-fourths of the mental ingenuity displayed, of the social falsehoods scattered broadcast ever since the world began by people whose importance they have served only to diminish, have been aimed at inferiors. — Marcel Proust

Now you tell me, when a father goes ahead and washes diapers or performs some other mean task for his child, and someone ridicules him as an effeminate fool, though that father is acting in the spirit just described and in Christian faith, my dear fellow you tell me, which of the two is most keenly ridiculing the other? God, with all his angels and creatures, is smiling, not because that father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith. Those who sneer at him and see only the task but not the faith are ridiculing God with all his creatures, as the biggest fool on earth. Indeed, they are only ridiculing themselves; with all their cleverness they are nothing but devil's fools. — Martin Luther

When something is staring you in the face in your life and you see it with your own two eyes and feel it within your heart only a fool doesn't believe it to be true. — James Frey

... I tell you that loneliness itself is the secret. It's a secret you cannot tell anyone. Why?
Because to confess your loneliness is to confess your failure as a human being. To confess would only cause others to pity and avoid you, afraid that what you have is catching. Your condition is caused by a lack of human relationship, and yet to admit to it only drives your possible rescuers farther away (while attracting cats).
So you attempt to hide your loneliness in public, to behave, in fact, as though you have too many friends already, and thus you hope to attract people who will unwittingly save you. But it never works that way. Your condition is written all over your face, in the hunch of your shoulders, in the hollowness of your laugh. You fool no one.
Believe me in this; I've tried all the tricks of the lonely man. — David Marusek

A dictator must fool all the people all the time and there's only one way to do that, he must also fool himself. — W. Somerset Maugham

Only a fool wants war, but once a war starts then it cannot be fought half-heartedly. It cannot even be fought with regret, but must be waged with a savage joy in defeating the enemy, and it is that savage joy that inspires our bards to write their greatest songs about love and war. — Bernard Cornwell

Preaching Christianity to skeptics without first setting out the praeambula fidei [preambles of faith], and then complaining when they don't accept it, is like yelling in English at someone who only speaks Chinese, and then dismissing him as a fool when he doesn't understand you. In both cases, while there is certainly a fool in the picture, it isn't the listener. — Edward Feser

Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that. — Patricia A. McKillip

I found my spirit wanted to choose between only two things - suicide, or the dreams I'd had in my youth. I am an old fool who borrowed the dreams of a young fool. — Kurt Vonnegut

This, as it happened, had fallen to his sister's share instead, and Lucilla stood opposite to her looking at her, attentive and polite, and unresponsive. If Harry had only not been such a fool ten years ago! for Mrs Woodburn began to think now with Aunt Jemima, that Lucilla did not marry because she was too comfortable, and, without any of the bother, could have everything her own way. — Mrs. Oliphant

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

I'm a fool, the new day rises on the world and on my foolish life: I'm a fool, I loved the blue dawns over racetracks and made a bet Ioway was sweet like its name, my heart went out to lonely sounds in the misty springtime night of wild sweet America in her powers, the wetness on the wire fence bugled me to belief, I stood on sandpiles with an open soul, I not only accept loss forever, I am made of loss - I am made of Cody, too - — Jack Kerouac

Yet by such worthless beings is a great nation to be governed and even made to deify their old king because he is only a fool and a maniac, and to forgive and forget his having lost to them a great and flourishing empire. — Thomas Jefferson

And there they were being so responsible, practicing safe sex and all. She'd been a fool to believe all that hype, she thought. The only hundred percent safe sex was between Barbie and Ken, and she'd heard rumors that they weren't doing it anymore. — Christopher Pike

You little fool. Tears are not a woman's only weapon. You've got another one between your legs, and you'd best learn to use it. You'll find men use their swords freely enough. Both kinds of swords. — George R R Martin

The bitterest creature under heaven is the wife who discovers that her husband's bravery is only bravado, that his strength is only a uniform, that his power is but a gun in the hands of a fool. — Pearl S. Buck

Only a fool would ever claim she was more beautiful than I. The world was full of fools, however. — George R R Martin

One day I asked him if he had come to enjoy the process of building companies, now that he was trying to do so for a third time. "Uh, no," he started, as if I were a fool. But if he didn't enjoy building companies, he sure had a thoughtful and convincing way of describing why he kept doing it. "The only purpose, for me, in building a company is so that that company can make products. One is a means to the other. Over a period of time you realize that building a very strong company and a very strong foundation of talent and culture in a company is essential to keep making great products. — Brent Schlender

Someone with a low degree of epistemic arrogance is not too visible, like a shy person at a cocktail party. We are not predisposed to respect humble people, those who try to suspend judgement. Now contemplate epistemic humility. Think of someone heavily introspective, tortured by the awareness of his own ignorance. He lacks the courage of the idiot, yet has the rare guts to say "I don't know." He does not mind looking like a fool or, worse, an ignoramus. He hesitates, he will not commit, and he agonizes over the consequences of being wrong. He introspects, introspects, and introspects until he reaches physical and nervous exhaustion.
This does not necessarily mean he lacks confidence, only that he holds his own knowledge to be suspect. I will call such a person an epistemocrat; the province where the laws are structured with this kind of human fallibility in mind I will can an epistemocracy. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Only a fool believes that his actions don't shape the world. — Richelle E. Goodrich

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

Sophie." He said her name softly. If her life depended on it, she could not have looked anywhere but into the flat, silver depths of his eyes. She didn't think it was possible to be more aware of him than she already was, but the next moment proved her wrong. "Darling. I must turn down your offer. I am as astonished as you. But this is a subject upon which I've had months to think.
You're intelligent. You suspected my first offer of marriage was based upon my conviction that you would never consent to an affair with me and that it was desperation only for your person
that drove me to offer for you."
"And the second upon a need to rescue me."
He nodded. "Far more straightforward, darling, yet hopelessly complex."
She ignored the shiver in her belly. "Meaning?"
"I love you." He reached for the wine and filled the two glasses, though he left them on the table.
"I've become like you. A hopeless fool who cannot break his vows. And I did make vows to you today. — Carolyn Jewel

The garden where you sit Has never a need of flowers, For you are the blossoms And only a fool or the blind Would fail to know it — Louis De Bernieres

IF A MAN is forced to choose between the truth and his father, only a fool chooses the truth. — Greg Iles

In the world we live in, one fool makes many fools, but one sage only a few sages. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

If you think that you can stop crime by catching us, locking us up, punishing us by brutal treatment, hanging or electrocuting us, sterilizing or castrating us, then you are a fool for thinking that way. That only makes bad matters worse. — Carl Panzram

Only a fool would make the bed every day. — Nancy Spain

I didn't bathe him because I was too afraid he would slip out of my hands or his belly button would open. Then one night I woke at three A.M. certain he was rotting like a chicken carcass. Only as I lowered him into the sink did I realize this was a crazy time to wash a baby and I began to cry because he was so trusting - I could do anything and he would go along with it, the little fool. — Miranda July

The old tale of Sleeping Beauty might end happily in French or English, but he was in Russia, and only a fool would want to live through the Russian version of any fairy tale. — Orson Scott Card

You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive anybody. It's the deceivers who make you feel bad. — Charles Bukowski

But let me say this, and I'll say it only once: don't fool yourself into thinking you're just on a detour as you sail home for Ithaca. A little pit stop, if you like, with the Lotus-Eaters or Calypso. There's no Athena interceding on your behalf. No guarantee you'll eventually arrive. If there's something you really want in life - especially if it's something that scares you, or you think you don't deserve - you have to go after it and do it now. Or in the very long you'll be right: you won't deserve it. — Alena Graedon

I thought about life, about my life, the embarrassments, the little coincidences, the shadows of alarm clocks on bedside tables. I thought about my small victories and everything I'd seen destroyed, I'd swum through mink coats on my parents' bed while they hosted downstairs, I'd lost the only person I could have spent my only life with, I'd left behind a thousand tons of marble, I could have released sculptures, I could have released myself from the marble of myself. I'd experienced joy, but not nearly enough, could there be enough? The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, and so there is no end to suffering, what a mess I am, I thought, what a fool, how foolish and narrow, how worthless, how pinched and pathetic, how helpless. None of my pets know their own names, what kind of person am I? — Jonathan Safran Foer

Where only a fool would build a house on shifting sand, the same goes for those who would build their lives on a lie - eventually, it is going to crumble. — Maggi Myers

only a fool would argue with a fool! — Eric Jerome Dickey

Only a dreamer or a fool would pick a stock at random and expect it to take off like a space ship from its launching pad. Certainly this has happened - about as often as a dime-store clerk has become a Hollywood star or a boy born in a log cabin has been elected President of the United States - just often enough, that is, to keep alive the Great American Dream. — Catherine Crook De Camp

You would bound off faster than a hare if I were such a fool." He grasped her shoulders and pulled her close. "I would advise against running from me. I would catch you easily, and the chase would only arouse me." When she tried to shrug his hands off her shoulders, he said, "Is this the fashion in which you thank me for freeing you?" he teased. "You might grant me a boon for my efforts. — Karen Marie Moning

Only a fool permits the letter of the law to override the spirit in the heart. Do not let a piece of paper stand in the way of true love and headlines. — Rod Stewart

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 difference between a wise man and a fool is a wise man learns his lessons from other people's mistakes and a fool only learns from his own. — Duane "Dog" Chapman

They say you can fool some of the people all of the time. Accordingly, I think we should concentrate on this group initially. We can move on to the people you can only fool some of the time at a later date if we deem it necessary. — Stephen Mitchell

What a strange creature is a laughing fool,
As if a man were created to no use
But only to show his teeth. — John Webster

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

There is a certain animal vitality in most of us which carries us through any trouble but the absolutely overwhelming. Only a fool has no sorrow, only an idiot has no grief - but then only a fool and an idiot will let grief and sorrow ride him down into the grave. — Edward Abbey

Only a fool took a remote from a god. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Only a fool loves war," said Calvar, "or a man who has never seen it. The trouble is that the survivors forget about the horrors and remember only the battle lust. They pass on that memory, and other men hunger for it. — David Gemmell

Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man's character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another person's virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one's own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries an ideal woman or a slut. — Ayn Rand

Since 99.362% of women love mustache rides, it seems only a fool would have a bare upper lip. — Albert Einstein

Only a fool would refuse to enter a fool's paradise when that's the only paradise he'll ever have a chance to enter. — Jessamyn West

I'm not laughing, and I'm not running. I wont lie either. You're a chilling sight to behold. I've had nightmares of monsters prettier than you." She stepped closer and raised her other hand to thread her fingers through his hair. This time he didn't flinch away. "But you're still you under all this flux nonsense. Only a fool of a woman would run from such an extraordinary man, and I am no fool, Ballard de Sauveterre. — Grace Draven

A fool may buy all the books in the world, and they will be in his library; but he will be able to read only those that he deserves to. — Swami Vivekananda

But she had loved her philosopher so strongly that she had made him believe that her body was aroused and ecstatic. Ibn Rushd had been fooled. Men were easily deceived in such matters because they wanted to believe they had the power to arouse. She wanted to make him believe he pleased her. But the truth was that she could give physical pleasure to a man but not receive it, she could only imagine what such pleasure might be like, she could watch and learn, and offer up to her lover the outward signs of it, while trying to fool herself, as well as him, that yes, she was being pleasured too, which made her an actress, a phony, and a self-deceiving fool. — Salman Rushdie

The demands of the time for objectivity and functionality must be fulfilled. If that clearly happens, then the buildings of our day will convey the greatness of which the age is capable, and only a fool will maintain that they lack it. — Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

Only a fool is humiliated by having been weak enough to have to overcome obstacles. — Evangeline Walton

Besides, I did love Luke - I did. But he wasn't the only one I wanted, and wanting isn't the same as loving. Just as I knew I loved Luke, I wasn't sure whether I loved Adair. I couldn't rule out that my attraction to him wasn't an advanced case of lust, though that's not to say it was inconsequential. Only a fool would underestimate the power of lust. Kingdoms have been won and lost, men and beasts have battled to the death over it. — Alma Katsu

It is a fool only, and not the philosopher, nor even the prudent man, that will live as if there were no God ... Were a man impressed as fully and strongly as he ought to be with the belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by the force of belief; he would stand in awe of God and of himself, and would not do the thing that could not be concealed from either. — Thomas Paine

In the midst of this utopia, which only your fellow lone voyagers would perceive, you used to transgress society's rules unknowingly, and no one would hold you accountable for it. You would mistakenly enter private residences, go to concerts to which you had not been invited, eat at community banquets where you could only guess the community's identity when they started giving speeches. Had you behaved like this in your own country, you would have been taken for a liar or a fool. But the improbable ways of a foreigner are accepted. Far from your home, you used to taste the pleasure of being mad without being alienated, of being an imbecile without renouncing your intelligence, of being an impostor without culpability. — Edouard Leve

I saved you," Andersen said at last, slowly but firmly, like Pat was an idiot child who had to be reminded of the basic rules of the universe. To wit: Gravity exists. Time purports to flow in a linear fashion, but it's only trying to fool us. I saved you. — Alex Gabriel

What a fool I was! and yet, in the sight of angels, are we any wiser as we grow older? It seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we go on; but, still, we are madmen all the same. — J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Is this the happiness you seek?" he whispered hoarsely. "Tell me now, and I will give it to you." He
moved down her body, his mouth on her bosom, his breath hot on her skin, and his hand freeing her
breast. Phoebe ran her fingers through his hair, thrusting her breast forward as he took the peak into his
mouth.
This was insanity!"Only a profligate would confuse happiness with desire - Oh!" The swell of pleasure
his mouth on her breast gave her was startling, and she cried out.
"And only a fool would try and separate the two," he responded hotly before he closed his mouth
around her other breast — Julia London

Only a fool can be happy. For happiness consists of two contradictory elements: contentment and pleasure. Enjoy pleasure and you have no contentment; be content and you have no pleasure. For this reason happiness is conceivable only for those who enjoy themselves without thinking that they will always want more and thus be discontented, or for those who are content without thinking that they have no pleasure. Whoever reflects can never be happy, unless he is a fanatic and thus blinded ... thus exercising control over his intelligence with his feelings, instead of the other way round — Marcellus Emants

Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is. — Assata Shakur

He came from a rock band and even though he was not a lead singer, I knew he was musical just from that. I also knew that he was intelligent enough from talking to him, that he would not play this part unless he could handle it vocally. I knew he was not about to get up there and have to have his voice dubbed or come off croaking. So Johnny Depp casted Johnny Depp. I trusted him entirely. I knew that he was no fool and he would only do it if he felt he could handle it. I told him to listen to the score carefully and if you can handle it, fine by me, and I was right. — Stephen Sondheim

Only a king-consort is fool enough to love a queen, he says quietly. — Kendare Blake

Only a fool is never afraid, Frank. Heroes are the people who carry on despite their fear, because they know the job's got to get done — Meg Cabot

Fortune, by being too lavish of her favours on a man, only makes a fool of him. — Publilius Syrus

A very small matter, when all is said; only a fool would be concerned about it. — Stendhal

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. — George Bernard Shaw

Only a fool lights a fire and tries to hide at the same time. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others. — Otto Von Bismarck

A man must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool. It is absurd to say that a man is ready to toil and die for his convictions if he is not even ready to wear a wreathe around his head for them. — G.K. Chesterton

Who knows where the road will lead us
Only a fool would say,
But if you let me love you
I'm sure to love you all the way. — Frank Sinatra

Love is not only blind, but a fool, a stumbling mess falling backwards through showroom doors into atmospheres unwelcoming of his presence. — Alex Gaskarth

Right. I am here because I want to spend whatever time I can around Genevieve Windham, even if it's only a few weeks amid paint fumes and under her parents' watchful eyes. I am here to share with her whatever support and insight I might render regarding her art before she leaves for damned France. I am here" - he brushed his nose along the top of the cat's head - "because I could not resist the opportunity to see her, to kiss her, even once more." The cat appeared to consider this, then bopped Elijah's chin. "I am here because I am a fool." A — Grace Burrowes

It amazed Chess how he'd really believed, almost all along, that there was nothing he'd miss, leaving this world. Only the whole of it, you ass-stupid fool.

Every bit, the living and the dead, and then some; hot sun on his back, the wind and the rain, full-out galloping into battle, feel of his guns in hand, a good hard fuck. Getting drunk - on absinthe, anger, blood. Stomping twice on some enemy's face for good measure, and laughing while he did it; the sound of Asher Rook's voice preaching, or Yancey's, singing. Ed's heartbeat under his cheek. — Gemma Files

Even if misfortune is only good for bringing a fool to his senses, it would still be just to deem it good for something. — Jean De La Fontaine

Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions. All of morality's laws - poorly understood and applied - are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners. — C.P. Cavafy