This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Nikolai Gogol, fully Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol or Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol
The current generation now sees everything clearly, it marvels at the errors, it laughs at the folly of its ancestors, not seeing that this chronicle is all overscored by divine fire, that every letter of it cries out, that from everywhere the piercing finger is pointed at it, at this current generation; but the current generation laughs and presumptuously, proudly begins a series of new errors, at which their descendants will also laugh afterwards.
Incidentally, there's a balanced position that all of America's presidential candidates could take on the controversial abortion issue. If they want votes they shouldn't campaign to make abortion illegal or legal. They should campaign to make it retroactive. If a kid reaches 25 and he or she is still jobless, feckless, and sitting around Starbucks acting like a — no offense — European, then whack.
It may be considered folly by common opinion but this refusal to destroy life unnecessarily, this reverence for it, must become a deeply implanted part of his ethical standard.
Paul Valéry, fully Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
Paul Gaugin, fully Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin
A young man who is unable to commit a folly is already an old man.
Peter L. Berger, fully Peter Ludwig Berger
His consuming interest remains in the world of men, their institutions, their history, their passions. And because he is interested in men, nothing that men do can be altogether tedious...He will naturally be interested in the events that engage men’s ultimate beliefs, their moments of tragedy and grandeur and ecstasy. But he will also be fascinated by the commonplace, the everyday. He will know reverence, but this reverence will not prevent him from wanting to see and to understand. He may sometimes feel revulsion or contempt , but this will also not deter him from wanting to have his questions answered. ...in his quest for understanding, moves through the world of men without respect for the usual lines of demarcation. Nobility ad degradation, power and obscurity, intelligence and folly -- these are equally interesting to him, however unequal they may be in his personal values or tastes. This his questions may lead him to all possible levels of society, the best and least known places, the most respected and the most despised. ...he will find himself in all these places because his own questions have so taken possession of him that he has little choice but to seek for answers.
Choice | Contempt | Events | Folly | Intelligence | Little | Men | Nobility | Nothing | Power | Respect | Reverence | Tragedy | Will | World | Respect |
Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL
The best plan is to profit by the folly of others.
Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone. [Bucky’s Vision]
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL
If you believe in everything, some of your beliefs may be foolish but you will also believe in the truth. However, when a person is too clever and does not want to believe in anything, he may begin by ridiculing falsehood and folly but can easily end up so skeptical of everything that he even denies the truth.
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
The brotherhood of the community is indeed the ground in which the individual is ethically realized. But the community is the frustration as well as the realization of individual life. Its collective egotism is an offense to his conscience; its institutional injustices negate the ideal of justice; and such brotherhood as it achieves is limited by ethnic and geographic boundaries. Historical communities are, in short, more deeply involved in nature and time than the individual.
Brotherhood | Individual | Nature | Offense | Time |
Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.
Wisdom prepares for the worst, but folly leaves the worst for the day when it comes.
It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
Quaint though this attitude seems now, it was unquestionably the prevalent one in the nineteenth century, and it would be over-bold to say that it will never return to favour, for the range of human folly is infinite.
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
A Child My Choice - Let folly praise that fancy loves, I praise and love that Child Whose heart no thought, whose tongue no word, whose hand no deed defiled. I praise Him most, I love Him best, all praise and love is His; While Him I love, in Him I live, and cannot live amiss. Love's sweetest mark, laud's highest theme, man's most desired light, To love Him life, to leave Him death, to live in Him delight. He mine by gift, I His by debt, thus each to other due; First friend He was, best friend He is, all times will try Him true. Though young, yet wise; though small, yet strong; though man, yet God He is: As wise, He knows; as strong, He can; as God, He loves to bless. His knowledge rules, His strength defends, His love doth cherish all; His birth our joy, His life our light, His death our end of thrall. Alas! He weeps, He sighs, He pants, yet do His angels sing; Out of His tears, His sighs and throbs, doth bud a joyful spring. Almighty Babe, whose tender arms can force all foes to fly, Correct my faults, protect my life, direct me when I die!
Angels | Birth | Choice | Death | Folly | Force | Friend | God | Heart | Knowledge | Life | Life | Love | Praise | Strength | Will | God | Child |
Some women can be fooled all of the time, and all women can be fooled some of the time, but the same woman can't be fooled by the same man in the same way more than half of the time.
Folly |
Have it jest as you've a mind to, but I've proved it time on time, / If you want to change her nature you have got to give her lime.
Folly |