Folly

“ My folly mayhap shall delight thee, A song of fools I will recite thee, Lady fair—O list!” Herewith he sighed amain, but smiled anon, And fell anon to blither, louder note: “Sing hey, Folly—Folly ho, And here's a song of Folly, All 'neath the sun, Will gladly run Away from Melancholy. “And Fool, forsooth, a Fool am I, Well learned in foolish lore: For I can sing ye, laugh or sigh: Can any man do more? Hey, Folly—Folly, ho! 'Gainst sadness bar the door. “A Fool am I, yet by fair leave, Poor Fools have hearts to feel. ”

“ Was it folly in him to watch her window from the street, and rate its scantiest gleam of light above all diamonds; folly in her to breathe his name upon her knees, and pour out her pure heart before that Being, from whom such hearts and such affections come!
If these be follies, then Fiery Face go on and prosper! If they be not, then Fiery Face avaunt! But set the crunched bonnet at some other single gentleman, in any case, for one is lost to thee for ever! ”

“ A journey fraught with folly, the child of folly, to end in folly, so might it have been said; but who can foretell the supreme moments of our lives, when unknowingly we stand on the threshold of action? And who should expect me to foresee that the man who was to touch the spring of my life's action sat before me—mocked of me, dubbed the Perfect Fool—over whose dead body I was to tread the paths of danger and the intricate ways of strange adventure? ”

“ The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. ”

“ It is the supreme example of the childish folly that, for the next two years, we were to see always hand in hand with diabolical wickedness and cunning. And always the folly has robbed the cunning of its prey. ”

“ And garner store of strife and scorn
To gain a scarce-remembered name,
Cumbered with lies and soiled with shame?
And if the gods care not for you,
What is this folly ye must do
To win some mortal's feeble heart?
O fools! when each man plays his part,
And heeds his fellow little more
Than these blue waves that kiss the shore
Take heed of how the daisies grow.
O fools! and if ye could but know
How fair a world to you is given.
O brooder on the hills of heaven,
When for my sin thou drav'st me forth,
Hadst thou forgot what this was worth,
Thine own hand had made? ”

“ Foolish, do you call it? Such folly makes all the difference between stepping off, scarcely conscious of the cares a woman carries, or staggering wearily along till she faints disheartened under their burthen. ”

“ So wilt thou go, come joy, come pain, come life or death, since a maid is made to make man saint or devil, some days glad and some days sad, but ever and always a fool. And thou art Fool by profession, and, being lover professed and confessed, art doubly a fool; and since, good Folly, love's but folly and thou, a Fool, art deep in folly, so is thy state most melancholy. ”

“ To feign the fool when fit occasions rise, Argues the being more completely wise.
It is easy therefore to collect how great a value ought to be put upon real folly, when the very shadow, and bare imitation of it, is so much esteemed. ”

“ The King smiled.
“Well!—it would be better to make a fool of yourself generally than particularly! Folly is not so harmful when spread like jam over a whole slice of bread,—but it may cause a life-long sickness, if swallowed in one secret gulp of sweetness!” ”

“ Somewhere in the world is a woman whose look will intoxicate me more than wine. And for her sake I shall invent some new folly.
THE MAID. What a pity!
THE GYPSY. No—the thought cheers me. So long as there are women, men will be fools. Their Ka-Fe will not help them.
THE MAID. Do you approve of folly, then?
THE GYPSY. It is the thing that makes life worth living. I have committed every kind of folly I know, and the world would be dull and empty if I did not think that some new and greater folly lay ahead.
THE MAID. You think, then, that one should surrender oneself to folly? ”

“ And in this every man is the more happy in how many respects the more he is mad; and if I were judge in the case, he should be ranged in that class of folly that is peculiarly mine, which in truth is so large and universal that I scarce know anyone in all mankind that is wise at all hours, or has not some tang or other of madness. ”

“ But, full as my cup of joy may be, it will never be without a bitter after-taste, for I cannot forget that my folly—my wicked folly—has blighted the life of a man who, an hour ago, was dearer to me than the whole world! ”

“ Oh the infinite value of true wisdom here,—the wisdom that understands both ways, and rightly chooses between! The folly of fools is deceit may mean that the folly of fools proves to them deceit. Their confidence in it, and their expectations from it, are sheer delusion. Or the sense may be, “deceit is the folly of fools.” ”

“ Sir Thomas Hammer reads, folly shewn. [The sense is, But wise men's folly, when it is once fallen into extravagance, overpowers their discretion. Revisal.] I explain it thus. The folly which he shows with proper adaptation to persons and times, is fit, has its propriety, and therefore produces no censure; but the folly of wise men when it falls or happens, taints their wit, destroys the reputation of their judgment. ”

“ When the gaities and follies of life are over (for folly will not always please) when even the more serious entertainments of manhood appear to us as more solemn titles; when covetousness itself, the last folly that forsakes us, because it begins so late, that it often settles upon the dregs of life, as upon a firm and immoveable ground, when even this cleaving folly, shall uncling and drop from us, when the world itself shall be a burden to us ”

“ Another's poison turning to a looseness proved his remedy rather than death; and that to his wife's no small sorrow, in that she lost both her labor and her charge. Another's cart broke, and he saved his horses. Another preserved from the fall of a house. All these hang up their tablets, but no one gives thanks for his recovery from folly; so sweet a thing it is not to be wise, that on the contrary men rather pray against anything than folly. ”

“ She pushed his arm aside almost roughly.
"You are mad, milor!" she said, in a choked murmur. "Such foolhardiness, when your life is in deadly jeopardy, becomes criminal folly——"
"The best of life," he said airily, "is folly. ”

“ The first has bells hanging to the sleeves, and is no doubt intended to represent folly in some form; the other appears to be intended for the head of a woman making grimaces. [69]
The fool had long been a character among the people before he became a court fool, for Folly—or, as she was then called, “Mother Folly”—was one of the favourite objects of popular worship in the middle ages, and, where that worship sprang up spontaneously among the people, it grew with more energy, and presented more hearty joyousness and bolder satire than under the patronage of the great. ”

“ The foolish nurse their hearts within the screen Of this familiar world, where all we do Or have is old, for there is nothing new: Yet elder far that world we have not seen; God's Presence antedates what else hath been: Many the foolish seem, the wise seem few. Oh foolishest fond folly of a heart Divided, neither here nor there at rest! That hankers after Heaven, but clings to earth; That neither here nor there knows thorough mirth, Half-choosing, wholly missing, the good part:-- Oh fool among the foolish, in thy quest. ”

“ For that which we call folly here,
Is wisdom in that favoured sphere;
The wisdom we so highly prize
Is blatant folly in their eyes.
A boy, if he would push his way,
Must learn some nonsense every day ”

“ This fellow's wise enough to play the fool; And, to do that well, craves a kind of wit: He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time; And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye. This is a practice As full of labour as a wise man's art: For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit; But wise men, folly-fallen, quite taint their wit. ”

“ I've committed many follies in my life—I have moods in which it amuses me to defy fate. But those follies have always been of my own willing. You”—I laughed—“you are a folly for me. But one that compels me.”
She smiled—not discouragingly—and seated herself on a tiny sofa in the corner, a curiously impregnable intrenchment, as I noted—for my impulse was to carry her by storm. I was astonished at my own audacity; I was wondering where my fear of her had gone, my awe of her superior fineness and breeding. “Mama will be down in a few minutes,” she said. ”

“ I knew none of you could have so little wit, or so much folly, or wisdom rather, as to be of any other opinion. For even the Stoics themselves that so severely cried down pleasure did but handsomely dissemble, and railed against it to the common people to no other end but that having discouraged them from it, they might the more plentifully enjoy it themselves. But tell me, by Jupiter, what part of man's life is that that is not sad, crabbed, unpleasant, insipid, troublesome, unless it be seasoned with pleasure, that is to say, folly? ”

“ I should but expose myself too far, and incur the guilt of being roundly laughed at, if I proceed to enumerate the several kinds of the folly of the vulgar. I shall confine therefore my following discourse only to such as challenge the repute of wisdom, and seemingly pass for men of the soundest intellectuals. ”

“ Well then, to scratch and curry one another, to wink at a friend's faults; nay, to cry up some failings for virtuous and commendable, is not this the next door to the being a fool? When one looking stedfastly in his mistress's face, admires a mole as much as a beauty spot; when another swears his lady's stinking breath is a most redolent perfume; and at another time the fond parent hugs the squint-eyed child, and pretends it is rather a becoming glance and winning aspect than any blemish of the eye-sight, what is all this but the very height of Folly? ”

“ Wherein yet their folly is not the least thing that pleases; which so true it is, I think no one will deny, that does but consider with himself, what foolish discourse and odd gambols pass between a man and his woman, as often as he had a mind to be gamesome? And so I have shown you whence the first and chiefest delight of man's life springs. ”

“ Thou wouldst be witty, Fool! FOOL.
Marry, say not I would be, but that I am so; for let me tell you, the wit of your Fool is true wit, being solely his own, no man coveting it; whereas that of your wise man comes from books, and from those who went before. But wherefore should I thus lose wind? my wit being folly, is not by your wise man understood; therefore, I'll to the purpose. My master is made half King, and sends me his swift Mercury, to tell your gentle ladyship his honour's pleasure. EDMUNDA.
Prithee, be brief, and tell thine errand quickly. ”

“ Can there be aught of shame in true love? Or is it that my ass's ears do shame thee, my cock's-comb and garments pied shame the worship of this foolish heart, and I, a Fool, worshipping thee, shame thee by such worship? Then—on, cock's-comb! Ring out, silly bells! Fool's love doth end in folly! Off love—on folly—a Fool can but love and die. ”

“ If, then, you are constrained—now accustomed as you are to self-vindication—to acknowledge your unreasonableness, how much more will you be speechless in the last day when madness will admit of no palliation, and folly will appear without disguise! ”

“ So you really believe that a woman would be committing an act of folly if she made such a choice. Say that again, father, if you want me to believe it,—you, who have so generously devoted your life to your child, who have been so lenient to her many weaknesses, who have made every sacrifice for her,—tell me that it would be arrant folly to devote one's life to an unfortunate creature to whom Fate has been most unkind; tell me that it would be arrant folly to cling to him because an infirmity kept everybody else aloof from him ”

“ And first, every man allows this proverb, "That where a man wants matter, he may best frame some." And to this purpose is that verse which we teach children, "'Tis the greatest wisdom to know when and where to counterfeit the fool." And now judge yourselves what an excellent thing this folly is, whose very counterfeit and semblance only has got such praise from the learned. But more candidly does that fat plump "Epicurean bacon-hog," Horace, for so he calls himself, bid us "mingle our purposes with folly;" ”

“ These two experiences prove how unwise it would be to form one’s estimate of all, in any circumstances, by the freaks and folly of a few. How easy to excuse much heedlessness and frivolity, hoping for better things with coming years, if out from among many youthful follies such good traits are made apparent! ”

“ We have sunk so low now that we try to act our exaggerations, and to live up to our lies. We call it "keeping up appearances;" and no more bitter phrase could, perhaps, have been invented to describe our childish folly. ”

“ Poor Fools, like other fools, may grieve If they their woes conceal. Hither, Folly—Folly, ho! All Fools to Folly kneel. “What though a Fool be melancholy, Sick, sick at heart—heigho! Pain must he hide 'neath laughing Folly, What Fool should heed his woe! Hither, Folly—Folly, ho! Fool must unpitied go. “E'en though a Fool should fondly woo, E'en though his love be high, Poor Folly's fool must wear the rue, Proud love doth pass him by. Heigho, Folly—Folly, ho! Poor Fool may love—and die. “Though Wisdom should in motley go, And fools the wise man ape ”