Fool Quotes (11)
A doctor who doesn't say too many foolish things is a patient half-cured. (1921)
'Le Côté de Guermantes', À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27).
A fool must now and then be right, by chance
'Conversation' (published 1782). In William Cowper and Humphrey Sumner Milford (ed.), The Complete Poetical Works of William Cowper (1905), 92.
Any man who does not make himself proficient in at least two languages other than his own is a fool.
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words (1865), 97.
Experience of actual fact either teaches fools or abolishes them.
The Homiletic Review, Vol. 83-84 (1922), Vol. 84, 380.
Heraldry has been contemptuously termed 'the science of fools with long memories.'
The Pursuivant of Arms: Or, Heraldry Founded Upon Facts (1873), 3.
In reality, all arguments from experience are founded on the similarity which we discover among natural objects, and by which we are induced to expect effects similar to those which we have found to follow from such objects. And though none but a fool or madman will ever pretend to dispute the authority of experience, or to reject that great guide of human life, it may surely be allowed a philosopher to have so much curiosity at least as to examine the principle of human nature, which gives this mighty authority to experience, and makes us draw advantage from that similarity which nature has placed among different objects. From causes which appear similar we expect similar effects. This is the sum of our experimental conclusions.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (1894), section 4, part 2, 36.
See also: | Conclusion (24) | Effect (15) | Experience (57) | Experiment (199) | Human Nature (28) | Philosopher (33) | Similarity (3)
Intelligence is an extremely subtle concept. It's a kind of understanding that flourishes if it's combined with a good memory, but exists anyway even in the absence of good memory. It's the ability to draw consequences from causes, to make correct inferences, to foresee what might be the result, to work out logical problems, to be reasonable, rational, to have the ability to understand the solution from perhaps insufficient information. You know when a person is intelligent, but you can be easily fooled if you are not yourself intelligent.
In Irv Broughton (ed.), The Writer's Mind: Interviews with American Authors (1990), Vol. 2, 57.
See also: | Ability (11) | Cause (49) | Concept (14) | Consequence (10) | Correct (5) | Foresee (2) | Inference (9) | Information (12) | Intelligence (31) | Logic (66) | Memory (15) | Problem (63) | Rational (9) | Result (25) | Solution (44) | Subtle (3) | Understanding (94) | Understanding (94)
Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Attributed. Contact webmaster if you know a primary print source.
See also: | Science (444)
Scientists are the easiest to fool. ... They think in straight, predictable, directable, and therefore misdirectable, lines. The only world they know is the one where everything has a logical explanation and things are what they appear to be. Children and conjurors—they terrify me. Scientists are no problem; against them I feel quite confident.
Code of the Lifemaker (1983, 2000),Chapter 1.
See also: | Appearance (4) | Child (39) | Confidence (4) | Explanation (20) | Logic (66) | Predictability (3) | Scientist (71) | Thinking (56)
There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.
Quoted in Frank Crane, American Magazine (May 1927), 41. In John J. B. Morgan and T. Webb Ewing, Making the Most of Your Life (2005), 75.
See also: | Question (45)
