Quotes about Folly

Young people are caught up in whatever appears to be the most bizarre. They look for truth and settle for folly. False religions and the occult are clever in reaching seekers who want to experience a rush of any kind.

Best, therefore, withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us, for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.

The world is neither wise nor just, but it makes up for all its folly and injustice by being damnably sentimental.

It matters not what growth has been made in grace, how well experienced we may be in the spiritual life, or how eminent the position we have occupied in the Lord's service—when He withdraws His sustaining hand the madness which is in our hearts by nature at once asserts itself, gains the upper hand, and leads us into a course of folly.

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

God has given us a world that nothing but our own folly keeps from being a paradise.

To forsake wisdom is to seek folly, to seek folly is to seek evil, to seek evil is to be in the arms of the devil, and to be in the arms of the devil is be in the arms of death.

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, most musical, most melancholy!

Hence vain deluding Joys,The brood of Folly without father bred!

The greatest wisdom consists in enjoying the present and making this enjoyment the goal of life, because the present is all that is real and everything else merely imaginary. But you could just as well call this mode of life the greatest folly: for that which in a moment ceases to exist, which vanishes as completely as a dream, cannot be worth any serious effort.

Consideration of the kind, touched on above, might, indeed, lead us to embrace the belief that the greatest wisdom is to make the enjoyment of the present the supreme object of life; because that is the only reality, all else being merely the play of thought. On the other hand, such a course might just as well be called the greatest folly: for that which in the next moment exists no more, and vanishes utterly, like a dream, can never be worth a serious effort.

But you could just as well call this mode of life the greatest folly: for that which in a moment ceases to exist, which vanishes as completely as a dream, cannot be worth any serious effort.