Busy old fool, unruly Sun, why dost thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
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He who knows not and knows not he knows not, He is a fool - Shun him. He who knows not and knows he knows not, He is simple- Teach him. He who knows and knows not he knows, He is asleep - Awaken him. He who knows and knows that he knows, He is wise- follow him.
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The child with his sweet pranks, the fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, without any power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to a whistle or a painted chip, to a lead dragoon, or a gingerbread dog, individualizing everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue, which this day of continual pretty madness has incurred. But Nature has answered her purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every faculty, and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame, by all these attitudes and exertions --an end of the first importance, which could not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own.
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Don't let them fool ya, Or even try to school ya! Oh, no! We've got a mind of our own, So go to hell if what you're thinking is not right! Love would never leave us alone, A-yin the darkness there must come out to light.
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It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
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His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. You appear to be astonished, he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it. To forget it! You see, he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. But the Solar System! I protested. What the deuce is it to me? he interrupted impatiently: you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.
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But words came halting forth, wanting Inventions stayInvention, Natures child, fled step-dame Studys blows...Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,Fool, said my Muse to me look in thy heart and write.
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And my poor fool is hanged! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,...
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You ask whether I have ever been in love: fool as I am, I am not such a fool as that. But if one is only to talk from first-hand experience, conversation would be a very poor business. But though I have no personal experience of the things they call love, I have what is better -- the experience of Sappho, of Euripides, of Catallus, of Shakespeare, of Spenser, of Austen, of Bronte, of anyone else I have read.
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Children look for grown-ups to show them how to live; When we try to fool them, they see through us like a sieve. We recognize the problem now; that's wonderful to see; The answer may well plague us 'til new values come to be. Volunteers are wonderful and will help to meet the need, But we must change the literature on which our children feed. We must teach and model absolutes of love, and justice, too; Prove to them that what we say, is just what we will do. There is one book, and it alone, will help attain success. It is the book, our fathers brought, to tame this wilderness. They used the Bible as their guide, the written Word of God; And found the wisdom written there, the greatest on this sod. Whether it was in the home, in public, or in school, The bible was the blueprint that became their greatest tool. Let's trash the recent literature before it is too late; Teach again, the basic values, that made our nation great. Surely it is evident, without a single doubt, That truth and right mus be invoked to help our children out. So, let's scour all the nation, and get folks to volunteer That believe the principles our precious kids should hear. If they are dependable, and use the proper tact, Volunteers can help to get our children back on track.
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Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity than straigthforward and simple integrity in another. A knave would rather quarrel with a brother knave than with a fool, but he would rather avoid a quarrel with one honest man than with both. He can combat a fool by management and address, and he can conquer a knave by temptations. But the honest man is neither to be bamboozled nor bribed.
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By rights, satire is a lonely and introspective occupation, for nobody can describe a fool to the life without much patient self-inspection.
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It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.
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Whenever I hear people talking about 'liberal ideas,' I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive. The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.
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A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward.
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The fool wonders, the wise man asks.
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'We're always lucky,' I said and like a fool I did not knock on wood.
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The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.
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And he who wields white wild magic gold is a paradox - for he is everything and nothing, hero and fool, potent, helpless - and with one word of truth or treachery he will save or damn the Earth because he is mad and sane, cold and passionate, lost and found.
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A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
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Thus, with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: Fool! said my muse to me, look in thy heart, and write.
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I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.
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The fool wanders, a wise man travels.
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In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it.
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The fool has to do at last what the wise did at first.
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When a fool has made up his mind the market has gone by
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Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
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As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
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We're all fools...all the time. It's just we're a different kind each day. We think, I'm not a fool today. I've learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect and live accordingly.
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He who hesitates is a damned fool.
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