Authors: Editors of Reader's Digest
W
E ALL KNOW A FOOL . . .
Â
We all know a fool when we see oneâbut not when we are one.
â
A
RNOLD
H
.
G
LASOW
Â
It is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time.
â
L
AURENCE
J
.
P
ETER
Peter's Almanac
Â
There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.
â
A
RISTOTLE
Â
You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
â
C
OLETTE
Â
April 1 is the day upon which we are reminded what we are on the other 364.
â
M
ARK
T
WAIN
Â
Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.
â
A
FRICAN PROVERB
Â
Anyone can make a mistake. A fool insists on repeating it.
â
R
OBERTINE
M
AYNARD
Â
A fool judges people by the presents they give him.
â
C
HINESE SAYING
Â
Astrology proves one scientific fact, and one only; there's one born every minute.
â
P
ATRICK
M
OORE
Â
Only a fool argues with a skunk, a mule or the cook.
â
H
ARRY
O
LIVER
Desert Rat Scrap Book
Â
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
â
H
ERBERT
S
PENCER
Essays
Â
The surprising thing about young fools is how many survive to become old fools.
â
D
OUG
L
ARSON
Â
Self-delusion is pulling in your stomach when you step on the scales.
â
P
AUL
S
WEENEY
Â
Â
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complainâand most do.
â
D
ALE
C
ARNEGIE
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Â
Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire.
â
Pocket Crossword Puzzles
Â
Follies change their type but foolishness remains.
â
E
RICH
K
ASTNER
Â
I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men.
â
G
EORGE
E
LIOT
Â
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
â
M
ARK
T
WAIN
Â
Everybody has the right to express what he thinks. That, of course, lets the crackpots in. But if you cannot tell a crackpot when you see one, then you ought to be taken in.
â
H
ARRY
S
.
T
RUMAN
Â
Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar territory.
â
G
.
B
EHN
Â
A fanatic is someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
â
W
INSTON
C
HURCHILL
Â
While intelligent people can often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple.
â
G
ERALD
W
.
G
RUMET,
MD
in
Readings
Â
There are 40 kinds of lunacy, but only one kind of common sense.
â
A
FRICAN PROVERB
Â
A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours.
â
M
ALCOLM
S
.
F
ORBES
Â
Bores bore each other, too, but it never seems to teach them anything.
â
D
ON
M
ARQUIS
Â
Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week.
â
W
ILLIAM
D
EAN
H
OWELLS
Â
A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one-and-a-half times his own weight in other people's patience.
â
J
OHN
U
PDIKE
Assorted Prose
Â
Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself.
â
G
ERALD
B
RENAN
Â
A bore is a fellow talker who can change the subject to his topic of conversation faster than you can change it back to yours.
â
L
AURENCE
J
.
P
ETER
Peter's Quotations
Â
People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the breakfast table.
â
M
AX
B
EERBOHM
Â
Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back or a fool from any side.
â
Y
IDDISH PROVERB
Â
Human reason is like a drunken man on horseback; set it up on one side, and it tumbles over on the other.
â
M
ARTIN
L
UTHER
Â
L
OST BY INDIFFERENCEÂ
. . .
Â
More good things in life are lost by indifference than ever were lost by active hostility.
â
R
OBERT
G
ORDON
M
ENZIES
Â
Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand.
â
B
ODIE
T
HOENE
Â
Love me or hate me, but spare me your indifference.
â
L
IBBIE
F
UDIM
Â
I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hateâit's apathy.
â
L
EO
B
USCAGLIA
Love
Â
It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men have something worth fighting for, they do not feel like fighting.
â
E
RIC
H
OFFER
The True Believer
Â
There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference.
â
J
UAN
M
ONTALVO
Â
The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life but that it bothers him less and less.
â
V
ACLAV
H
AVEL
Â
Crime expands according to our willingness to put up with it.
â
B
ARRY
F
ARBER
Â
G
ROW ANGRY SLOWLYÂ
. . .
Â
Grow angry slowlyâthere's plenty of time.
â
R
ALPH
W
ALDO
E
MERSON
Â
Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
â
R
OBERT
G
.
I
NGERSOLL
Â
Anger is not only inevitable, it is necessary. Its absence means indifference, the most disastrous of all human failings.
â
A
RTHUR
P
ONSONBY
Â
Anger is a symptom, a way of cloaking and expressing feelings too awful to experience directlyâhurt, bitterness, grief and, most of all, fear.
â
J
OAN
R
IVERS
Still Talking
Â
Getting angry can sometimes be like leaping into a wonderfully responsive sports car, gunning the motor, taking off at high speed and then discovering the brakes are out of order.
â
M
AGGIE
S
CARF
in
The New York Times Magazine
Â
Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right wayâthat is not easy.
â
A
RISTOTLE
Â
Anger is a bad counselor.
â
F
RENCH PROVERB
Â
Resentment is an extremely bitter diet, and eventually poisonous. I have no desire to make my own toxins.
â
N
EIL
K
INNOCK
Â
There's a bit of ancient wisdom that appeals to us: it's a saying that a fight starts only with the second blow.
â
H
UGH
A
LLEN
Â
I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
â
B
OOKER
T
.
W
ASHINGTON
Â
My life is in the hands of any fool who makes me lose my temper.
â
J
OSEPH
H
UNTER
Â
It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.
â
C
.
S
.
L
EWIS
Mere Christianity
Â
Temper, if ungoverned, governs the whole man.
â
A
NTHONY
S
HAFTESBURY
Â
Temper is a quality that at a critical moment brings out the best in steel and the worst in people.
â
W
ILLIAM
P
.
G
ROHSE
Â
Revenge has no more quenching effect on emotions than salt water has on thirst.
â
W
ALTER
W
ECKLER
Â
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
â
I
SAAC
A
SIMOV
Â
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
â
F
RANCIS
B
ACON
Â
Getting even throws everything out of balance.
â
J
OE
B
ROWNE
in Post-Gazette
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Â
If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
â
S
YDNEY
J
.
H
ARRIS
Â
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
â
J
AMES
B
ALDWIN
Â
To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.
â
W
ILLIAM
H
.
W
ALTON
Â
Nothing lowers the level of conversation more than raising the voice.
â
S
TANLEY
H
OROWITZ
Â
Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.
â
C
HINESE PROVERB
Â
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
â
A
MBROSE
B
IERCE
Â
Hot words make a real cool friendship.
â
F
LO
A
SHWORTH
in
Advertiser & News
(Dawsonville, Georgia)
Â
The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.
â
J
ACQUELINE
S
CHIFF
in
National Enquirer
Â
G
OSSIP NEEDN'T BE FALSEÂ
. . .
Â
Gossip needn't be false to be evilâthere's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around.
â
F
RANK
A
.
C
LARK
Â
There is nothing busier than an idle rumor.
â
H
ERBERT
V
.
P
ROCHNOW
The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom
Â
In our appetite for gossip, we tend to gobble down everything before us, only to find, too late, that it is our ideals we have consumed, and we have not been enlarged by the feasts but only diminished.
â
P
ICO
I
YER
in
Time
Â
Knowledge is power, if you know it about the right person.
â
E
THEL
W
ATTS
Â
A gossip is a person who creates the smoke in which other people assume there's fire.