A doctrinaire is a fool but an honest man.

My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it.

Nobody ever did anything very foolish except from some strong principle.

The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.

Things are coming to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade private life.

It is not much matter which we say, but mind, we must all say the same.

It wounds a man less to confess that he has failed in any pursuit through idleness, neglect, the love of pleasure, etc., etc., which are his own faults, than through incapacity and unfitness, which are the faults of his nature.

Once is orthodox, twice is puritanical.

That is no use at all. What I want is men who will support me when I am in the wrong.

A doctrinaire is a fool but an honest man.

I wish I was as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything.

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.

Fortune makes a fool of those she favors too much.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.

A good businessman never makes a contract unless he's sure he can carry it through, yet every fool on earth is perfectly willing to sign a marriage contract without considering whether he can live up to it or not.

The biggest fool in the world is he who merely does his work supremely well, without attending to appearance.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can't fool the neighbors.

Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.

Anyone who works is a fool. I don't work - I merely inflict myself upon the public.

A fool often fails because he thinks what is difficult is easy.

He who hesitates is a damned fool.

It's easy to fool the eye but it's hard to fool the heart.

The greatest misfortune of the wise man and the greatest unhappiness of the fool are based upon convention.

The reality is, it will be a significant conflict going for many, many months, if not longer. Saddam Hussein is not a fool. He hasn't been sitting there waiting to get shot for 13 years.

Sometimes the fool who rushes in gets the job done.

A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.

Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it.

Nothing gives us courage more readily than the desire to avoid looking like a damn fool.

There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.

The best servants of the people, like the best valets, must whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not the foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose.

You give me nothing during your life, but you promise to provide for me at your death. If you are not a fool, you know what I wish for!

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

I think any man in business would be foolish to fool around with his secretary. If it's somebody else's secretary, fine.

My music will go on forever. Maybe it's a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.

But when I did think about it and looked at the whole package - the producers behind the show, the writers, the cast I would be working with - I would have been a fool to turn it down just because the role for me was another gay role.

We should not fool ourselves. We are not one of the world's top teams any more.

Yes, I now that you feel you are not strong enough. That's what the enemy thinks too. But we're gonna fool them.

You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there is no way we can look at what's happening in Africa, and if we're honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else.

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.

A man is a fool if he drinks before he reaches the age of 50, and a fool if he doesn't afterward.

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.

Chavez made a compete fool of himself in front of the entire world while giving the U.N. a black eye. But the real losers are the Venezuelan people who have to put up with this unstable character every day.

I guess what bothers me so much about what I now see going on in both Washington and in Texas is an effort to keep people from finding out about the mistakes of lawmakers and then when they're uncovered, an effort to fool people and pretend there was nothing wrong.

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

I wonder whether if I had an education I should have been more or less a fool that I am.

Is there in all the history of human folly a greater fool than a clergymen in politics?

Even a fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it won't keep the wise from trying.