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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Fool Quotes

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

– William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 5. After Maria calls Feste a troublemaker and leaves, Feste says this in an aside. This is the court clown’s most famous quote. While he does not have the social status of the other characters, he is allowed poke fun at them without being punished. But he is also intelligent and self-aware and can see their follies.

He’s a fool. An absolute fool to talk that way. Every leading doc in the world is saying you should wear a mask when you’re in a crowd.

– Joe Biden

On Donald Trump’s rejection of face masks during Covid-19 outbreak.

I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool - that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool - Great Gatsby quote

All right…I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. Chapter 1, Daisy on her newborn girl. She is saying there is no hope for women to make a difference in early society, as they are not seen as intellectural figures in the early 1900s. Better for a woman to act dumb and naive and allow men take care of her, than trying to become strong and opionionated.

They say I murdered Custer. But it was a lie. He was a fool who rode to his death. - Sitting Bull

They say I murdered Custer. But it was a lie. He was a fool who rode to his death.

– Sitting Bull

To a reporter in 1877.

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

Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.

– H. L. Mencken

Away, you three-inch fool!

– William Shakespeare

The Taming of the Shrew, Act 4, Scene 1.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

– William Shakespeare

As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 1.

A rich man without charity is a rogue; and perhaps it would be no difficult matter to prove that he is also a fool.

– Henry Fielding

One fool at least in every married couple.

– Henry Fielding

THE CAPTAIN: A martyr, Lavinia, is a fool. Your death will prove nothing.
LAVINIA: Then why kill me?

– George Bernard Shaw

Androcles and the Lion, Act 1.

Look, don’t congratulate us when we buy a company, congratulate us when we sell it. Because any fool can overpay and buy a company, as long as money will last to buy it.

– Henry Kravis

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

– Hunter S. Thompson

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

– H. L. Mencken

When emotion rules, every fool thinks that he is holy.

– Howard Jacobson

A healthy old fellow, who is not a fool, is the happiest creature living.

– Gerald Brenan

As soon as you become afraid to make a fool of yourself, you’re in trouble. I decided I may as well just see if I can live with myself making millions of mistakes and learn something from it.

– Gelsey Kirkland

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

– Henry David Thoreau

A fool and her money are soon courted.

– Helen Rowland

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

– Heinrich Heine

There is no fool like a careless gambler who starts taking victory for granted.

– Hunter S. Thompson

It has been said that there is no fool like an old fool, except a young fool. But the young fool has first to grow up to be an old fool to realize what a damn fool he was when he was a young fool.

– Harold MacMillan

I think I’ve been able to fool a lot of people because I know I’m a dork. I’m a geek.

– Gwen Stefani

Fortune makes a fool of those she favors too much.

– Horace

I wasn’t playing the music, the music was playing me… and once that went away, and I had the feeling I was playing music, I had to stop. The need to go onstage and get my brain flattened every night left me, and what I didn’t wanna do is go onstage and perpetrate a fraud… You cannot fool an audience.

– Henry Rollins

It takes one woman twenty years to make a man of her son – and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him.

– Helen Rowland

Commend a fool for his wit, or a rogue for his honesty and he will receive you into his favor.

– Henry Fielding

Even a fool knows you can’t touch the stars, but it won’t keep the wise from trying.

– Harry Anderson

I’m reasonably easygoing. Messing up my lines or making a fool of myself is where you find my fears. Like a lot of English people, I’m prey to embarrassment – the dread that everyone’s sort of sniggering at you, that you’re going to look like an idiot. I think that sort of halts us all.

– Hugh Laurie

It takes a woman twenty years to make a man of her son, and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him.

– Helen Rowland

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