Wise Man And Fool Quotes & Sayings

A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth. — C.S. Lewis

Without culture there can be no growth; without exertion, no acquisition; without friction, no polish; without labor, no knowledge; without action, no progress; and without conflict, no victory. The man who lies down a fool at night, hoping that he will waken wise in the morning, will rise up in the morning as he laid down in the evening. — Frederick Douglass

A fool is surrounded by blessings, but is chained by folly and thus cannot reach them. A wise person is surrounded by blessings, and has extra-long arms to reach for them. — Matshona Dhliwayo

2. "HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own - in this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the 'Thing-in-itself - THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!" - — Friedrich Nietzsche

The only difference between a wise man and a fool was in the magnitude of his mistakes. To err was human, and the smarter and more powerful you were, the greater the scope of your screwup. — Tom Clancy

All I know is that while I'm asleep, I'm never afraid, and I have no hopes, no struggles, no glories - and bless the man who invented sleep, a cloak over all human thought, food that drives away hunger, water that banishes thirst, fire that heats up cold, chill that moderates passion, and, finally, universal currency with which all things can be bought, weight and balance that brings the shepherd and the king, the fool and the wise, to the same level. There's only one bad thing about sleep, as far as I've ever heard, and that is that it resembles death, since there's very little difference between a sleeping man and a corpse. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

It is a terrifying thing when the animals laugh at the hunter. Take a tip from Harlequin and the Joker. If you imitate a fool well, you are not likely to be fooled by others. To be it bluntly, albeit unorginally: A fool who knows he is a fool is indeed a wise man. — Anton Szandor LaVey

Get a friend to tell you your faults, or better still, welcome an enemy who will watch you keenly and sting you savagely. What a blessing such an irritating critic will be to a wise man, what an intolerable nuisance to a fool! — Charles Spurgeon

The man in the action-adventure movie who does whatever he wants and breaks all the rules is not a hero. He is a fool. Regardless of the apparent good that results in the end, he is a fool and the world he represents is a lie. It wouldn't be wise to make an evening's entertainment of watching powerful dramas that teach our children to think about life in ways that are not true. — Tedd Tripp

Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance. (Proverbs 1:5, NIV) The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice. (Proverbs 12:15, NIV) Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. (Proverbs 15:22, NIV) Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise. (Proverbs 19:20, NIV) — Andy Stanley

If You Have A Lemon, Make A Lemonade That is what a great educator does. But the fool does the exact opposite. If he finds that life has handed him a lemon, he gives up and says: "I'm beaten. It is fate. I haven't got a chance." Then he proceeds to rail against the world and indulge in an orgy of selfpity. But when the wise man is handed a lemon, he says: "What lesson can I learn from this misfortune? How can I improve my situation? How can I turn this lemon into a lemonade? — Dale Carnegie

Only madmen and fools are pleased with themselves; no wise man is good enough for his own satisfaction. — Benjamin Whichcote

A clever fool and a foolish wise man. — George R R Martin

A man can be old and a fool
many are
a man can be young and wise
few are — Charles Bukowski

The fool sees naught but folly; and the madman only madness. Yesterday I asked a foolish man to count the fools among us. He laughed and said, "This is too hard a thing to do, and it will take too long. Were it not better to count only the wise?" — Khalil Gibran

I Have often thought if the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool. There are infinite reveries, numberless extravagances, and a perpetual train of vanities which pass through both. The great difference is, that the first knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by suppressing some, and communicating others; whereas the other lets them all indifferently fly out in words. — Joseph Addison

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance. — Akhenaton

There is only a finger's difference between a wise man and a fool. — Diogenes

A fool shouts charge when he should retreat, A coward shouts retreat when he should charge and a wise man knows the difference. I charge. — Tonny K. Brown

Praise a fool, and slay him; for the canvas of his vanity is spread; His bark is shallow in the water, and a sudden gust shall sink it: Praise a wise man, and speed him on his way; for he carrieth the ballast of humility, And is glad when his course is cheered by the sympathy of brethren ashore. — Martin Farquhar Tupper

The only real difference between a wise man and a fool, Moore knew, was that the wise man tended to make more serious mistakes - and only because no one trusted a fool with really crucial decisions; only the wise had the opportunity to lose battles, or nations. — Tom Clancy

The fool's crime is the crime that is found out and the wise man's crime is the crime that is not found out. — Wilkie Collins

The greatest misfortune of the wise man and the greatest unhappiness of the fool are based upon convention. — Franz Schubert

Wine turns the wise man into a fool and the fool into a wise man. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

We all are weak, in one way or another. It does not matter the species. Some times that weakness is a strength in dusguise. Sometimes it is our utter undoing. Some times it is both. A wise man seeks to find a lesson from it. A fool lets it control and destroy him.
And sometimes the wise man is the fool. — Christie Golden

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practise
As full of labour as a wise man's art
For folly that he wisely shows is fit;
But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit. — William Shakespeare

Now here is a riddle," Melisandre said. "A clever fool and a foolish wise man. — George R R Martin

I care not whether a man is good or evil; all that I care / Is whether he is a wise man or a fool. Go! put off holiness, / And put on intellect. — William Blake

The wise man understands his weakness and seeks to find a lesson from it. The fool lets it control and destroy him. — Christie Golden

Society is in this respect like a fire-the wise man warming himself at a proper distance from it; not coming too close, like the fool, who, on getting scorched, runs away and shivers in solitude, loud in his complaint that the fire burns. — Arthur Schopenhauer

When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand." The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom. — Frank Herbert

The great Tibetan meditator Gungtang Jampelyang once asked
'What is the difference between a wise man and a fool?'
The difference lies in their intention. A wise person is someone who has a good intention, not someone who merely possesses knowledge. — Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

The fool rushed to certain conclusions.
The middling man approached them warily, and with circumspection.
And the wise man, perceiving them from afar, decided to go round another way. — Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. — Anonymous

Wealth is the slave of the wise man and master of the fool. — Seneca.

A man may live like a fool for a year, and become wise in a day. — John Williams

All things and all people in life have to sink or swim on their own merits, not their reputation; that just as a wise man can say a foolish thing, a fool can say something wise. — Vincent Bugliosi

A wise man first thinks and then speaks and a fool speaks first and then thinks. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib

Young Bob Lincoln and Elmer Ellsworth . . . were cutting up in the office, and Lincoln reproved them. Bob replied by quoting the well-known couplet

A little nonsense now and then
Is relished by the wisest men.

"So it is," said Lincoln; "that's the difference between the wise man and a fool, who relishes it all the time. — Emanuel Hertz

When a fool sees himself as he is, then he is a fool no longer; and when a wise man learns of his own wisdom, then he becomes a fool." This caused me great trouble, for it seemed mere word play. But after many years I have come to this conclusion: that only in certainty is there moral danger. Doubt is the gift we must cherish, for it forces us to question our motives constantly. It guides us to truth. — David Gemmell

The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. The time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it; so is that of the other, because he distinguishes every moment of it with useful or amusing thoughts
or, in other words, because the one is always wishing it away, and the other always enjoying it. — Joseph Addison

Paradox is beloved of novelists. The despised savior, the humane whore, the selfish man suddenly munificent, the wise fool, and the cowardly hero. Most writers spend their lives writing about unexpected malice in the supposedly virtuous, and unexpected virtue in the supposedly sinful. — Thomas Keneally

is it possible to love a human being?
of course, especially if you don't know them too well. I like to watch them through my window, walking down the street.
Stirkoff, you're a coward.
of course, sir.
what is your definition of a coward?
a man who would think twice before fighting a lion with his bare hands.
and what is your definition of a brave man?
a man who doesn't know what a lion is.
every man knows what a lion is.
every man assumes that he does.
and what is your definition of a fool?
a man who doesn't realize that Time, Structure and Flesh are being mostly wasted.
who then is a wise man?
there aren't any wise men, sir.
then there can't be any fools. if there isn't any night there can't be any day; if there isn't any white there can't be any black.
I'm sorry, sir. I thought that everything was what it was, not depending on something else — Charles Bukowski

What a wise man knows is great,
what a fool knows is little,
and what God knows is infinite.
God does not condemn a man for not knowing,
but condemns a man for knowing and not doing. — Matshona Dhliwayo

A wise man sees failure as progress.
A fool divorces his knowledge and misses the logic,
And loses his soul in the process. — Canibus

To speak and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks. — Ben Jonson

But no matter how much parents and grandparents may have sinned against the child, the man who is really adult will accept these sins as his own condition which has to be reckoned with. Only a fool is interested in other people's guilt, since he cannot alter it. The wise man learns only from his own guilt. He will ask himself: Who am I that all this should happen to me? To find the answer to this fateful question he will look into his own heart. — C. G. Jung

It's a wise man who isn't afraid to make a fool of himself every now and then. — Benita J. Prins

A fool is known by his
speech; and a wise man by
silence. — Pythagoras

No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise, but may easily err, if he will take no others counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own counsel; or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master. — Ben Jonson

It is a difficult question, my friends, for any young man
that question I had to grapple with, and which thousands are weighing at the present moment in these uprising times
whether to follow uncritically the track he finds himself in, without considering his aptness for it, or to consider what his aptness or bent may be, and re-shape his course accordingly. I tried to do the latter, and I failed. But I don't admit that my failure proved my view to be a wrong one, or that my success would have made it a right one; though that's how we appraise such attempts nowadays
I mean, not by their essential soundness, but by their accidental outcomes. If I had ended by becoming like one of these gentlemen in red and black that we saw dropping in here by now, everybody would have said: 'See how wise that young man was, to follow the bent of his nature!' But having ended no better than I began they say: 'See what a fool that fellow was in following a freak of his fancy! — Thomas Hardy

Kent. Who's there?
Fool. Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a wise man and a fool. — William Shakespeare

Few things are needful to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies the fool; - and this is the reason why so many of mankind are miserable. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Get money - but stop once in a while to figure what it is costing you to get it. No man gets it without giving something in return. The wise man gives his labor and ability. The fool gives his life. — Bruce Barton

The errors of a wise man are literally more instructive than the truths of a fool. The wise man travels in lofty, far-seeing regions; the fool in low-lying, high-fenced lanes; retracing the footsteps of the former, to discover where he diviated, whole provinces of the universe are laid open to us; in the path of the latter, granting even that he has not deviated at all, little is laid open to us but two wheel-ruts and two hedges. — Thomas Carlyle

A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident. — Anonymous

You're wrong," Lord Dudley said. "You've always been a fool."
"The fool thinks he is wise," G retorted. "But the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
That was a great line, he thought. He tried to remember where he'd stashed the quill and paper. — Cynthia Hand

God hath given to mankind a common library, His creatures; to every man a proper book, himself being an abridgment of all others. If thou read with understanding, it will make thee a great master of philosophy, and a true servant of the divine Author: if thou but barely read, it will make thee thine own wise man and the Author's fool. — Francis Quarles

Travel makes a wise man better, and a fool worse. — Thomas Fuller

No photograph ever was good, yet, of anybody - hunger and thirst and utter wretchedness overtake the outlaw who invented it! It transforms into desperadoes the weakest of men; depicts sinless innocence upon the pictured faces of ruffians; gives the wise man the stupid leer of a fool, and the fool an expression of more than earthly wisdom. — Mark Twain

Plato taught us that, "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something." The sages throughout the ages have echoed this very sentiment about the inferior man. The book of Proverbs states, "A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions." And Chuang Tzu taught, "Fools regard themselves as already awake." They think they are smarter than other people. — Bohdi Sanders

Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one. — Herman Melville

I learned over the years never to correct a fool or he will hate you; correct a wise man, and he will appreciate you. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

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

A fool's mind is at the mercy of his tongue and a wise man's tongue is under the control of
his mind. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib

18 Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. 19 And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? — Anonymous

He is a wise man who seeks by every legitimate means to make all the money he can honestly, for money can do so many worthwhile things in this world, not merely for one's self but for others. But he is an unmitigated fool who imagines for a moment that it is more important to make the money than to make it honestly. One of the advantages of possessing money is that it facilitates one's independence and mental attitude. The man head over heels in debt is more slave than independent. — B.C. Forbes

A wise man heedeth all things, and in his own eyes is a fool. — Martin Farquhar Tupper

the wise man needs nothing and yet he can make good use of anything, whereas the fool 'needs' countless things but can make good use of none of them. — Donald J. Robertson

I know only one thing. when i sleep, i know no fear, no, trouble no bliss. blessing on him who invented sleep. the common coin that purchases all things, the balance that levels shepherd and king, fool and wise man. there is only one bad thing about sound sleep. they say it closely resembles death. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Money is the root of all evil.' Then we hear, 'A fool and his money are soon parted.' What are they talking about? If money is so evil, shouldn't it be, 'A wise man and his money are soon parted'? And another thing, how does a fool get money in the first place? I know some fools who have a lot of money, but they won't tell me how they got it, and I won't tell them. — George Burns

Any fool can wash himself, but every wise man knows that it is an unnecessary labour, for nature will quickly reduce him to a natural and healthy dirtiness again. — James Stephens

He Who Knows And Knows That He Knows Is A Wise Man - Follow Him;
He Who Knows Not And Knows Not That He Knows Not Is A Fool - Shun Him — Confucius

You must hasten to oppose pernicious pride of mind, before it penetrates into the marrow of your bones. Resist it, curb the quickness of your mind and humbly subject your opinion to the opinions of others. Be a fool for the love of God, if you wish to be wiser than Solomon: 'If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise' (I Cor. 3:18). — Lorenzo Scupoli

Science is the art of creating suitable illusions which the fool believes or argues against, but the wise man enjoys for their beauty or their ingenuity, without being blind to the fact that they are human veils and curtains concealing the abysmal darkness of the unknowable — Carl Jung

There are four types of men in this world: 1. The man who knows, and knows that he knows; he is wise, so consult him. 2. The man who knows, but doesn't know that he knows; help him not forget what he knows. 3. The man who knows not, and knows that he knows not; teach him. 4. Finally, there is the man who knows not but pretends that he knows; he is a fool, so avoid him. — Solomon Ibn Gabirol

If you wish to get rich, save what you get. A fool can earn money; but it takes a wise man to save and dispose of it to his own advantage. — Brigham Young

A fool will study for twenty or thirty years and learn how to do something, but a wise man will study for twenty or thirty minutes and become an expert. In this world, it isn't ability that counts, but authority. — Barry Hughart

Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket" - which is but a matter of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention"; but the wise man saith, "Pull all your eggs in the one basket and - WATCH THAT BASKET." - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar — Mark Twain

One great difference between a wise man and a fool is, the former only wishes for what he may possibly obtain; the latter desires impossibilities. — Democritus

I am just another blind man. I do not get the whole picture of what transpires in all places. I am blind and limited. I would be a fool to think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me. — Jim Butcher

The fool strikes. The wise man smiles, and watches, and learns. Then strikes. — Joe Abercrombie

There are two apples, one is green and the other is red. Which apple would the wise man choose? The answer is: I'll take the one you didn't choose. You see, you are the fool here, because I poisoned the first apple! — Jarod Kintz

Gaze not on beauty too much, lest it blast thee; nor too long, lest it blind thee; nor too near, lest it burn thee. If thou like it, it deceives thee; if thou love it, it disturbs thee; if thou hunt after it, it destroys thee. If virtue accompany it, it is the heart's paradise; if vice associate it, it is the soul's purgatory. It is the wise man's bonfire, and the fool's furnace. — Francis Quarles

For there will be no memory of the wise man or of the fool; in the days to come all will be forgotten, and alas, the wise man dies the same death as the fool! — Anonymous