Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Folly
All human wisdom to divine is folly;
This truth the wisest man made melancholy.
Denham.—Progress of Learning, Line 207.
Is folly then so old? Why, let me see
About what time of life may folly be?
Oh! she was born, by nicest calculation,
One moment after woman’s first creation.
W. Spencer.—Prol. to “Fashionable Friends.” (Metrical Miscellany.)
Sick of herself is folly’s character,
As wisdom’s is a modest self-applause.
Dr. Young.—Night VIII. Line 918.
Folly ends where genuine hope begins.
Cowper.—Hope, Line 637.
And must I ravel out
My weav’d up follies?
Shakespeare.—King Richard II., Act IV. Scene 1. (The King to Northumberland.)
Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it;
If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.
Pope.—Moral Essays, Epi. II. Line 15.
In hers or vice’s casual road advance,
Thoughtless, the sinners or the saints of chance.
Shenstone.—The Judgment of Hercules, Line 27, and see a song by Congreve beginning “Pious Selinda.”
Thus in a sea of folly tost,
My choicest hours of life are lost.
Swift.—Horace, Book II. Line 125.