H. L. Mencken Quotes

There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom.

Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.

Fools make researches and wise men exploit them.

In all superstition wise men follow fools.

The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.

A fool's wild speech confounds the wise.

He could remember all about it now; the pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the very thing he had so often agreed with himself in thinking would be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactly the consequences which, in these wise moods, he had always foretold were certain to follow, if he ever did make such a fool of himself.

The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

A wise man watches his faults more closely than his virtues; fools reverse the order.

The master of superstition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.

Since love is folly, a foolish woman is more dangerous than a wise one.

Wise men read very sharply all of your private history in your look and gait and behavior.

A bad reader soon puts to flight both wise men and fools.

Silence is the best answer to a fool.

Only a fool is astonished by the foolishness of mankind.

Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one.

Thus we play the fool with the time and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.

None is so wise, but the foole overtakes him.

There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise.

Be wise among the wise, but pretend to be dull among fools.

The wise needn't ask, the fool asks in vain.

The follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.

Fools make news, and wise men carry it.

The Errors of a Wise Man make your Rule Rather than the Perfections of a Fool.