Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.

It is the part of a fool to say, I should not have thought.

The keynote of simple folk is bad manners, familiarity. They intrude on one's private soul.

There were the giants, great of stature and expert in war.... They perished because they had no wisdom; they perished through their own foolishness.

Ice cream shops are just houffs, persons just entering and enjoying themselves in a manner which is not proper.

Fools multiply when wise men are silent.

Stupidity has its sublime as well as genius, and he who carries that quality to absurdity has reached it; which is always a source of amusement to sensible people.

Fools are not mad folks.

That isn’t greatness. That’s just foolishness.

Don't you know that it is only very foolish folk who talk sense all the time?

One must be a little foolish if one does not want to be even more stupid.

Folly growes without watering.

If to talk to oneself when alone is folly, it must be doubly unwise to listen to oneself in the presence of others.

To the counsell of fooles a woodden bell.

Folly is wont to have more followers and comrades than discretion.

To stumble twice against the same stone, is a proverbsial disgrace.

And if my present actions strike you as foolish, let's just say I've been accused of folly by a fool.

We are fooles one to another.

Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.

Wrinkle not thy face with too much laughter, lest thou become ridiculous; neither wanton thy heart with too much mirth, lest thou become vain: the suburbs of folly is vain mirth, and profuseness of laughter is the city of fools.

Fool beckons fool, and dunce awakens dunce.

Foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom.

True, as unwisdom is the worst of ills