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FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.

— Ambrose Bierce The Cynic's Dictionary (1906)

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Wisdom

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.

An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.

What I Saw At Shiloh (1881)

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

O proud philanthropist, your hope is vain
To get by giving what you lost by gain.

When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had.

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If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.'

William Shakespeare As You Like It (1599)

It takes extraordinary wisdom and self-control to accept that many things have a logic we do not understand that is smarter than our own.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.

George Chapman All Fools (1605)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ambrose Bierce (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.