A Quote by Dorothy Parker

Four things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Dorothy Parker

Quote Topics

Am Foe Four Friend Idleness Know Sorrow Things Wiser

Quote Author

Dorothy Parker
American - Poet
August 22, 1893 - June 7, 1967

Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

Dorothy Parker

Dear is my friend--yet from my foe, as from my friend, comes good: My friend shows what I can do, and my foe what I should.

Friedrich Schiller

He that is thy friend indeed, He will help thee in thy need: If thou sorrow, he will weep; If thou wake, he cannot sleep: Thus of every grief in heart He with thee does bear a part. These are certain signs to know Faithful friend from flattering foe.

William Shakespeare

Courage, ne'er by sorrow broken! Aid where tears of virtue flow; Faith to keep each promise spoken! Truth alike to friend and foe!

Friedrich Schiller

Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.

Socrates

In four ways ... should one who flatters be understood as a foe in the guise of a friend: He approves of his friend's evil deeds, he disapproves his friend's good deeds, he praises him in his presence, he speaks ill of him in his absence.

Gautama Buddha

We are at war - undeclared and of such a subtle nature that few have noticed - but war nevertheless. It is a cyberwar on many fronts, in which it is difficult to identify who is friend and who is foe. I will predict now, as unintelligible as it may seem, that Anonymous will turn out to be more friend than foe.

John McAfee

I am a foe to tyrants, and my country's friend.

William Shakespeare

Now that I know that I am no wiser than anyone else, does this wisdom make me wiser?

Hugh Prather

And children know, Instinctive taught, the friend and foe.

Walter Scott

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

Socrates

Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe, Are lost on hearers that our merits know.

Alexander Pope

Thus much for thy assurance know; a hollow friend is but a hellish foe.

Nicholas Breton

Recently, one friend asked me, "How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with sorrow? It isn't natural." I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow, because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on then we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can not let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty.

Nhat Hanh

I walked a mile with Pleasure; She chattered all the way. But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow And ne'er a word said she; But oh, the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me!