41 Quotes About Foolishness

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!

There is nothing more foolish than an act of wickedness; there is no wisdom equal to that of obeying God.

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

I was being foolish. An atheist can't stand behind their assertion that God doesn't exist. The stupidest thing I ever could have done was to reject His Truth.

If you have ever prayed in the dawn you will ask yourself why you were so foolish as not to do it always: it is difficult to get into communion with God in the midst of the hurly-burly of the day.

Only a fool thinks he can fool God.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

The fool wanders, a wise man travels.

He that has no fools, knaves nor beggars in his family was begot by a flash of lightning.

Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.

You can believe a whole lot of foolish things, but God doesn't want you to do that. He wants your faith to rest upon the Word of God.

There is nothing more foolish than an act of wickedness; there is no wisdom equal to that of obeying God.

The wise man considers what he wants and the fool what he abounds in.

What fools are they who, for a drop of pleasure, drink a sea of wrath.

Return to the battle again, no longer trusting in the false and insufficient human resources which so foolishly we had taken into the battle, but now trusting in the limitless resources of our risen Lord.

Hasty conclusions are the mark of a fool; a wise man doubteth; a fool rageth and is confident; the novice saith, "I am sure that it is so"; the better learned answers, "Peradventure, it may be so; but, I pray thee, inquire."

Every Christian who does not study, really study, the Bible every day is a fool.

Fools measure actions, after they are done, by the event; wise men beforehand, by the rules of reason and right. The former look to the end, to judge of the act. Let me look to the act, and leave the end with God.

To have too much forethought is the part of a wretch; to have too little is the part of a fool.

Fools are without number.

He that is proud of riches is a fool. For if he is exalted above his neighbors because he has more gold, how much inferior is he to a gold mine.

Oh, thrice fools are we, who like new-born princes weeping in the cradle, know not that there is a kingdom before them; then, let our Lord's sweet hand square us, and hammer us, and strike off the knots of pride, self-love, and world-worship, and infidelity, that He may make us stones and pillars in His Father's house.

Those that disobey the commandments of God do so foolishly for themselves. Sin is folly, and sinners are the greatest fools.

Return to the battle again, no longer trusting in the false and insufficient human resources which so foolishly we had taken into the battle, but now trusting in the limitless resources of our risen Lord.

Many have been the wise speeches of fools, though not so many as the foolish speeches of wise men.

Foolish talking and jesting are not the ways in which Christian cheerfulness should express itself, but rather "giving of thanks" (Eph. 5:4). Religion is the source of joy and gladness, but its joy is expressed in a religious way, in thanksgiving and praise.

As idle talk is often concealed under the garb of jesting, and wit, the Apostle Paul expressly condemns pleasantry, which is so agreeable as to seem a praiseworthy virtue, as a part of foolish talking.

A wise man may look ridiculous in the company of fools.

Do not assume that after regeneration the wise have advantage over the foolish in making spiritual progress. Unless they are more faithful and submissive, their better mental comprehension adds nothing to their intuitive knowledge.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

Gravity must be natural and simple; there must be urbanity and tenderness in it. A man must not formalize on everything. He who does so is a fool; and a grave fool is, perhaps, more injurious than a light fool.

Nothing doth so fool a man as extreme passion. This doth make them fools which otherwise are not, and show them to be fools which are so.

Never contend with one that is foolish, proud, positive, testy, or with a superior, or a clown, in matter of argument.

Gold is the fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the world.

Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy.

It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.

Nothing is more like a wise man than a fool who holds his tongue.

Riches are the pettiest and least worthy gifts which God can give a man. What are they to God's Word, to bodily gifts, such as beauty and health; or to the gifts of the mind, such as understanding, skill, wisdom! Yet men toil for them day and night, and take no rest. Therefore God commonly gives riches to foolish people to whom he gives nothing else.

A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell!