A Quote by Quintilian

Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.

Quintilian

Quote Topics

Among Appear Foolish Fools Seem Those Wise Wish

Quote Author

Quintilian
Roman - Educator
35 - 95

Be wise among the wise, but pretend to be dull among fools.

Thiruvalluvar

I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.

William Blake

Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.

Plutarch

Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.

Cato the Elder

A wise quote can only change a wise man! Therefore, wise sayings are for the wise men, not for the fools! The sunflowers turn their face toward the Sun, the fools, toward the darkness!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

Zeal is fit for wise men, but flourishes chiefly among fools.

John Tillotson

Prefer to be defeated in the presence of the wise than to excel among fools.

Dogen

... you must hasten to oppose pernicious pride of mind, before it penetrates into the marrow of your bones. Resist it, curb the quickness of your mind and humbly subject your opinion to the opinions of others. Be a fool for the love of God, if you wish to be wiser than Solomon: 'If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise' (I Cor. 3:18).

Lorenzo Scupoli

The fool sees naught but folly; and the madman only madness. Yesterday I asked a foolish man to count the fools among us. He laughed and said, "This is too hard a thing to do, and it will take too long. Were it not better to count only the wise?"

Khalil Gibran

Someone has to make the final decision, but the wise leader gathers information and seeks counsel - after deciding who among those surrounding him provides consistently wise advice - before making that final decision.

John E Ferling

Out of all those centuries the Greeks can count seven sages at the most, and if anyone looks at them more closely I swear he'll not find so much as a half-wise man or even a third of a wise man among them.

Desiderius Erasmus

We find that at present the human race is divided politically into one wise man, nine knaves, and ninety fools out of every hundred. That is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them, and become politicians; the wise man stands out, because he knows himself to be hopelessly out-numbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics or philosophy; while the ninety fools plod off behind the banners of the nine villains, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice and warfare.

T. H. White

Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.

Cato the Elder

It is never wise to try to appear to be more clever than you are. It is sometimes wise to appear slightly less so.

William Whitelaw

Love works in miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and stretching the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favouring the passions, destroying reason, and in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy.