A Quote by Benjamin Franklin

An assembly of great men is the greatest fool upon earth.

Benjamin Franklin

Quote Topics

Assembly Earth Fool Great Great Men Greatest Men

Quote Author

Benjamin Franklin
American - Politician
January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790

It is wonderful how preposterously the affairs of the world are managed. We assemble parliaments and councils to have the benefit of collected wisdom, but we necessarily have, at the same time, the inconvenience of their collected passions, prejudices and private interests: for regulating commerce an assembly of great men is the greatest fool on earth

Benjamin Franklin

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.

Charles Spurgeon

Of all the creatures that creep, swim, or fly, Peopling the earth, the waters, and the sky, From Rome to Iceland, Paris to Japan, I really think the greatest fool is man.

Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

As the stars are the glory of the sky, so great men are the glory of their country, yea, of the whole earth. The hearts of great men are the stars of earth; and doubtless when one looks down from above upon our planet, these hearts are seen to send forth, a silvery light just like the stars of heaven.

Heinrich Heine

The greatest of all fools is the proud fool--who is at the mercy of every fool he meets.

Washington Allston

A World Parliamentary Assembly functioning outside the United Nations, or a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly set up as a subsidiary body of the General Assembly pursuant to article 22 of the UN Charter, could start initially as a consultative body and gradually develop into a legislative assembly.

Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

Gold, n.: A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold hasn't done anything to them.

Mike Harding

If I am a fool then it is no misfortune, for then only one more fool will wander this Earth. Amongst the millions of mentally deranged it would barely be noticed. But what if I am not a fool, and that science itself has erred? Then the tragedy is incalculable!

Viktor Schauberger

Earth bears no balsams for mistakes; Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool That did his will: but thou, O Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool.

Edward Rowland Sill

It has been said that there is no fool like an old fool, except a young fool. But the young fool has first to grow up to be an old fool to realize what a damn fool he was when he was a young fool.

Harold MacMillan

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

Franz Schubert

What we want, above all things on earth in our public men, is independence. It is one great defect in the character of the public men of America that there is that real want of independence; and, in this respect, a most marked contrast exists between public men in this country and in Great Britain.

John C. Calhoun

There never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them.