A Quote by John Dryden

None are so busy as the fool and the knave.

John Dryden

Quote Topics

Busy Fool Knave None

Quote Author

John Dryden
English - Poet
August 19, 1631 - May 12, 1700

No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool.

George Savile

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.

Charles Caleb Colton

Better be a foole then a knave. [Better be a fool than a knave.]

George Herbert

A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person.

William Hazlitt

Avoid the politic, the factious fool, The busy, buzzing, talking harden'd knave; The quaint smooth rogue that sins against his reason, Calls saucy loud sedition public zeal, And mutiny the dictates of his spirit.

Thomas Otway

Perhaps there is a reason that there is no fool piece on the chessboard. What action, a fool? What strategy, a fool? What use, a fool? Ah, but a fool resides in a deck of cards, a joker, sometimes two. Of no worth, of course. No real purpose. The appearance of a trump, but none of the power: Simply an instrument of chance. Only a dealer may give value to the joker.

Christopher Moore

He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.

Charles Caleb Colton

Anyone who pretends not to be interested in money is either a fool or a knave.

Patricia Wentworth

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

Voltaire

I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well.

William Hazlitt

A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.

Charles Caleb Colton

Every knave is a thorough knave, and a thorough knave is a knave throughout.

George Berkeley

Titles are marks of honest men, and wise; The fool or knave that wears a title lies.

Edward Young

No father, no son, no mother, no daughter should get so busy that he or she does not have time to study the scriptures and the words of modern prophets. None of us should get so busy that we crowd out contemplation and praying. None of us should become so busy in our formal Church assignments that there is no room left for quiet Christian service to our neighbors.