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Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

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Wisdom

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• “Do mortal fools still measure the increments leading to their deaths, wagering pleasures against costs, persisting in the delusion that deeds have value, that the world and all the gods sit in judgment over every decision made or not made?”

  Steven Erikson (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Fools, art is a heavy task, more heavy than gold crowns; it's far more difficult to match firm words than armies, they're disciplined troops, unconquered, to be placed in rhythm, the mind's most mighty foe, and not disperse in air. I'd give, believe me, a whole land for one good song, for I know well that only words, that words alone, like the high mountains, have no fear of age or death.”

  Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.”

  Samuel Butler (poet) first seen 1759 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose of Mr. Samuel Butler (1759), edited by Robert Thyer

• “Quoth she, I 've heard old cunning stagers Say fools for arguments use wagers.”

  Samuel Butler (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Samuel Butler

• “We idly sit, like stupid blockheads, Our hands committed to our pockets, And nothing but our tongues at large, To get the wretches a discharge: Like men condemn'd to thunder-bolts, Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts; Or fools besotted with their crimes, That know not how to shift betimes, And neither have the hearts to stay, Nor wit enough to run away.”

  Samuel Butler (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I suffer fools gladly because I am one of them.”

  Harry Secombe (1921–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “You damned fools. You can either vote for me for mayor or you can go to hell.”

  John Wentworth (1815–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in Chicago Magazine, June 2006

• “58: Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.”

  Alan Perlis (1922–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I began to see why woman-haters could make such fools of women. Woman-haters were like gods: invulnerable and chock-full of power. They descended, and then they disappeared. You could never catch one.”

  Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores.”

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Notebook E, edited by Edmund Wilson (1945)

• “Ninety-nine per cent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.”

  Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Mockery; the righteousness of fools everywhere.”

  Peter F. Hamilton (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We do not learn this only from the event, which is the master of fools.”

  Livy (59 BC–17) said by 17 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There are two kinds of fools: one says, "This is old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This is new, therefore it is better.”

  William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931), p. 200

• “It looks as if you need only enter the field for long enough to recognise the bannus and take hold of it. Then you order it to stop." "Fight my way through a mob of dancing girls and snatch the dulcimer off the leading damsel," Reigner Two said morbidly. "I can just see myself. I think the fools who invented this thing might have thought of a simpler way to stop it. What's wrong with a red switch?”

  Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I keep trying to resist the thought, but the thought keeps pushing its way back in: The Western world has sunk into madness. There are no solutions to anything. The talk of our politicians is the babbling of fools, but we keep electing them anyway. We are collectively insane.”

  John Derbyshire (born 1945) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Succouring the Poor, National Review, February 6, 2012.

• “In my own world, sir, sad to say, human prejudice is matched only by human folly. Not a soul claims to be prejudiced, of course, as there are few who would describe themselves as fools...” Elric, chewing on a piece of barely palatable salt beef, remarked that this seemed a quality of a good deal of society, throughout the multiverse.”

  Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “They are too green", he said, "and only good for fools".”

  Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) said by 1695 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Fox and the Grapes, fable 11; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

  Also quoted by: J. De La Fontaine

• “Men fight when they should run, and fools fight when they should run. But I had no need to say it twice.”

  Robert Jordan (1948–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It seems to me that kings — and queens — can be fools when they forget what they are and act like who they are, but they’re worse when they only remember what they are and forget who.”

  Robert Jordan (1948–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Young men can be impetuous, young men can be rush, young men can be fools, but the Car'a'carn cannot let himself be a young man.”

  Robert Jordan (1948–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Young men and fools sometimes bear pain they do not have to as a badge of their pride. Or their foolishness.”

  Robert Jordan (1948–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I have been vitally aware of the Law of Opposites, and this awareness has kept me reasonably serene... the drama of life... the play of truth. the quarrel of fools and frauds, male and female, the classic and the romantic, the disciplined and the free... the comic and the tragic contrasting of the opposites in all areas of possibility and on and on and on.”

  William Saroyan (1908–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Yesterday I was on the edge Hoping everything was going to work itself out A good honest man doing the work of God Trying to make things better for Him A lover of life in a school for fools Trying to find another way to survive”

  Cat Stevens (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Men fight for liberty, and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.”

  D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Poem, "Liberty's old story" in Pansies (Third typing, ribbon copy - 231 poems, c. 11-28 February 1929)

• “I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.”

  Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Trees" - This poem was first published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse Vol. 2 (August 1913). The first two lines were first written down on the 2nd of February 1913.

• “Most people are fools, most authority is malignant, God does not exist, and everything is wrong.”

  Ted Nelson (born 1937) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: quoted by Gary Wolf in "The Curse of Xanadu" in Wired (6/1995)

• “I do not believe in violence; it is the last resort of fools.”

  H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Dawn (1884), CHAPTER XXI

• “. . . we are all fools in our different ways, and how can any one dig out of his heart the folly that his mother put there before he was born?”

  H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925) said by 1925 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Thus love makes fools of all of us, big and little”

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) said by 1863 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We busted out of class had to get away from those fools; We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school. Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound; I can feel my heart begin to pound. You say you're tired and you just want to close your eyes and follow your dreams down.”

  Bruce Springsteen (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “But it's written in the starlight And every line in your palm We're fools to make war On our brothers in arms.”

  Mark Knopfler (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels, but I would slave to learn the way, to sink your ship of fools.”

  Robert Hunter (1941–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Might is a fine thing, and useful for many purposes; for 'one goes further with a handful of might than with a bagful of right'. You long for freedom? You fools! If you took might, freedom would come of itself. See, he who has might 'stands above the law'. How does this prospect taste to you, you 'law-abiding' people? But you have no taste!”

  Max Stirner (1806–1856) said by 1856 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Cambridge 1995, p. 151

• “But you know you can't always see when you're right You got your passion you got your pride But don't you know only fools are satisfied? Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true When will you realize Vienna waits for you?”

  Billy Joel (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “As for hatred of a tyrant, that is a more human sentiment which has full play in time of war, when force and the mob are one. Emperors must be mad fools to decide on declaring wars which substitute an armed nation for their Praetorian Guards. That idiocy accomplished, despotism of course produces revolution until terrorism leads to the inevitable reaction.”

  André Maurois (1885–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We are irritated by rascals, intolerant of fools, and prepared to love the rest. But where are they?”

  Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.”

  Doris Lessing (1919–2013) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Martha Quest (1952), Part III, ch. 2

• “Hell, the world isn’t worth reforming or even aiding as I can see. Men are swine and most women are fools. Befriend a man and he’ll betray you. Fondle a woman and she’ll double-cross you – whip her and she’ll cringe to you.”

  Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: From a letter to Harold Preece (c. early 1928)

• “The hopes of the right-minded may be realized, those of fools are impossible.”

  Democritus (461–361 BC) said by 361 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “They [the Government of Victoria] are all damned fools to bother their heads about Parliament at all, for this is our country.”

  Ned Kelly (1854–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

  Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Those who think the information brought out at a criminal trial is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth are fools. Prosecuting or defending a case is nothing more than getting to those people who will talk for your side, who will say what you want said.”

  F. Lee Bailey (1933–2021) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: New York Times, 20 September 1970.

• “Don’t flaunt your ignorance or try to insult me. I don’t suffer fools gladly and insults irritate me”

  Alice Borchardt (1939–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Technology keeps changing and the cams keep getting smaller. Only fools count on their secrets staying safe forever.”

  David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Of what is't fools make such vain keeping? Sin their conception, their birth, weeping: Their life, a general mist of error, Their death, a hideous storm of terror.”

  John Webster (1578–1634) said by 1634 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Dear Night! this world's defeat; The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb; The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat Which none disturb! Christ's progress, and His prayer-time; The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.”

  Henry Vaughan (1621–1695) said by 1695 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Motherfuckers say that I'm foolish I only talk about jewels Do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it? See I'm influenced by the ghetto you ruined That same dude you gave nothing, I made something doing.”

  Jay-Z (born 1969) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.”

  Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) said by 1904 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Remember that Children and Fools want every thing because they want Wit to distinguish: and therefore there is no stronger Evidence of a Crazy Understanding, than the making too large a Catalogue of things necessary, when in truth there are so very few things that have a right to be placed in it.”

  George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) said by 1695 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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