Robert Christy, comp. Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages. 1887.
Fool—Wise Man
A fool can ask more questions than seven wise men can answer.Italian.
A fool is always meditating how he shall begin his life; a wise man, how he shall end it.N. McDonald.
A fool knows his own business better than a wise man that of other men.Italian.
A fool knows more in his own house than a wise man in another’s.
A fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years.
A fool may chance to put something in a wise man’s head.
A fool may give a wise man counsel.
A fool may make money but it requires a wise man to spend it.
A fool may meet with good fortune but the wise only profit by it.
A fool throws a stone into a well and it requires an hundred wise men to get it out again.Italian.
A man may talk like a wise man, yet act like a fool.
Amangst twenty-four fools no ae wise man.
A nod for a wise man and a rod for a fool.
A rich fool is a wise man’s treasurer.
A wise man and a fool together know more than a wise man alone.Italian.
A wise man begins in the end, and a fool ends in the beginning.
A wise man changes his mind, a fool never.Spanish.
A wise man may learn of a fool.
A wise man may look ridiculous in the company of fools.
A wise man’s thoughts walk within him, a fool’s without him.
A wise man’s soul reposes at the root of his tongue, but a fool’s is ever dancing on the tip.Arabian.
A wise man thinks all that he says, a fool says all that he thinks.
A wise man will not reprove a fool.Chinese.
Better to weep with the wise than laugh with fools.German.
Better with the wise in prison than with fools in paradise.German.
Bridges were made for wise men to walk over and fools to ride under.
Each wise man has a fool for his brother.German.
Every fool can find faults that a great many wise men can’t remedy.
Fools are wise men in the affairs of women.
Fools ask, What o’clock? but wise men know their time.Dutch.
Fools build houses and wise men buy them.Dutch.
Fools invent fashions and wise men follow them.French.
Fools lade out all the water and wise men take the fish.
Fools make feasts and wise men eat them.
Fools may ask more in an hour than wise men can answer in seven years.
Fools set stools for wise men to stumble at.
Fools tie knots and wise men loose them.
He is a fool who cannot be angry, but he is a wise man who will not.
He is not a wise man who cannot play the fool on occasion.Italian.
He that is a wise man by day is no fool by night.
If a wise man should never miscarry the fool would burst.
If the fool have a hump no one notices; if the wise man have a pimple everybody talks about it.Livonian.
If wise men never erred it would go hard with the fool.
If wise men play the fool they do it with a vengeance.
It is better to associate with the half fool than the half wise man.German.
It is better to be saved with the fool, than to perish with the wise.De Langoiran.
It is better to sit with a wise man in prison than a fool in paradise.
It takes a wise man to be a fool.
None can play the fool as well as a wise man.
Oftentimes to please fools wise men err.
One day of a wise man is worth the whole life of a fool.
One fool makes many, but a thousand wise men cannot make one wise man.German.
One wise man is worth a thousand fools.Modern Greek.
Set a fool to roast eggs and a wise man to eat them.
That which makes wise men modest makes fools unmannerly.
The fool doth think that he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.Shakespeare.
The fool knows more in his own house than the sage in other men’s.Italian.
The fool may teach the wise man wit.
The fool wanders, the wise man travels.
The fool wonders, the wise man asks.Benjamin Disraeli.
The greatest of all fools is he who is wise too soon.Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.
The least foolish is accounted wise.
The wise and the fool have their fellow.
The wise can learn of fools.German.
The wise do at the beginning what fools do at the end.German.
The wise man draws more advantage from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
The wise man when he holds his tongue says more than a fool when he speaks.
The wise man is born to rule the fool.
The wise man knows he knows nothing, the fool thinks he knows all.Italian.
The wise man knows the fool but the fool does not know the wise man.
The wise must endure fools.German.
The wise seek wisdom, the fool has found it.German.
The wise too jealous are, fools too secure.Congreve.
There is no one so wise that he may not be cheated by a fool.German.
Valiant fools were made by nature for the wise to work with.Rowe.
Were there no fools there would be no wise men.German.
Wise men change their minds, fools never.
Wise men have their mouth in their heart; fools their heart in their mouth.
Wise men learn by other men’s mistakes; fools by their own.
Wise men learn more from fools, than fools from wise men.Cato the Censor.
Wise men sue for office and blockheads get them.Dutch.