Simpletons and Sages

“Some folks are wise and some are otherwise.” -Tobias Smollett (1721 - 1771)
 
“By associating with wise people, you will become wise yourself.” -Menander of Athens
 
“It is peculiarly a fool’s habit to discern the faults of others, and to forget his own.” -Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero, also known as Tully (106 B.C.E. - 43 B.C.E.))
 
“A wise man may look ridiculous in the company of fools.” -Thomas Fuller (1654 - 1734)
 
“There are more fools in the world than there are people.” -Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856)
 
“A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion.” -Grantland Rice (Henry Grantland ‘Grantland’ Rice (1880 - 1954))
 
“A fool may be known by six things: anger, without cause; speech, without profit; change, without progress; inquiry, without object; putting trust in a stranger; and mistaking foes for friends.” -Author Unknown
 
“Nearly four decades ago psychologist Stanley Milgram had a volunteer stand stock still on a busy New York sidewalk and look up at the sky. About one in every 25 passersby stopped to look up, too. When five volunteers were recruited to sky-gaze, nearly one in five passersby stopped to look up. When Milgram and his colleagues assembled a group of 18 volunteers to simultaneously look up at nothing in particular, nearly one in two passersby looked up to see what was going on, snarling traffic within moments.” -Author Unknown: as quoted in the “Washington Post” (December 2007) newspaper
 
Simpletons and Sages Facts
- A simpleton is sometimes perceived by others as being a fool.
- A sage is a supposed wise or learned person.
- Every human is made of part simpleton and part sage.
 
“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” -Colette (Sidonie Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954))
 
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” -Bertrand A. Russell (Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872 - 1970))
 
“Ignorance is bold, and knowledge reserved.” -Thucydides (about 460 B.C.E. - about 395 B.C.E.): as quoted in James Wood, editor: “Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources” (1899), page 178
 
As a rule, man is a fool.
     When it’s hot, he wants it cool;
When it’s cool, he wants it hot.
     Always wanting, what is not.
-Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
 
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” -Douglas Adams (Douglas Noel Adams (1952 - 2001))
 
“It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.” -Author Unknown
 
“I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things.” -Alan Coren
 
“We all know a fool when we see one - but not when we are one.” -Arnold H. Glasow
 
“I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.” -Epicurus (341 B.C.E. - 270 B.C.E.)
 
“I am a member of the rabble, in good standing.” -Westbrook Pegler
 
“A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.” -Balthasar Gracián (1601 - 1658)
 
“Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832): “Proverbs in Prose” (1819)
 
“The wise man is but a clever infant, spelling letters from a hieroglyphical prophetic book, the lexicon of which lies in eternity.” -Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881)
 
“Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is poverty. Ignorance is devastation. Ignorance is tragedy. Ignorance is illness. It all stems from ignorance.” -Author Unknown
 
“A moment’s thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.” -J. E. Houseman
 
Overheard: I am always stupid at the wrong times . . . why can’t I be stupid at the right times?
 
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l i v e ☆ l a u g h ツ l o v e ♥ g r o w ☼ l i v e ☆ l a u g h ツ l o v e ♥ g r o w ☼ 
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Dummy’s Guide to Life
 
Do you find day-to-day life hard? Do you wish life had an instruction booklet? Do you wish your brain had an owner’s manual? If you answered, “Yes,” to any of these questions, you have come to the right place. Following you will find, free of charge, a short ‘guide to life.’ In here, you will find most of the information you need to live life day by day without injuring yourself. Read carefully, and carry out each instruction exactly.
 
- Do not eat rocks.
- Do not take naps in the road.
- Do not throw a brick straight up.
- Do not breathe the exhaust from vehicles.
- Walk around toxic waste dumps, not through them.
- Do not stargaze with friends on a hilltop in a thunderstorm and use metal fishing rods as pointers.
- If you need to get somewhere, and a freight train heading in the direction you are traveling just happens to be nearby, resist the urge to stand in front of it and grab hold as it passes.
- If you want to pound on the radiator to tell the landlord to turn up the heat, do not do it with your head.
- Do not make funny faces at angry bulls.
- Do not stick screwdrivers into electrical outlets.
- The warning ‘Do not try this at home’ really means ‘Do not try this at all.’
- Do not iron clothes while wearing them.
- Do not sled down hills with roads at the bottom.
- Do not lick ice.
- Do not pour salt in your eyes.
- Your body has the correct number of holes in it. Do not make any more.
- Do not chase a bear into the woods to get a close-up photo.
- Do not chew on aluminum foil.
- Shovels are for digging holes in the ground, not in the floor of your house.
- Contrary to popular opinion, you are not supposed to strip the protective rubber coating off electrical wires before plugging them in.
- If you want to chew gum, buy some. Do not use the gum from underneath the seats at schools and movie theaters even though it is free.
- Do not kick stone walls.
- Even if you need to get downstairs quickly, do not jump out of a window - use the stairs.
- When using an acetylene torch, do not feel the flame to see if it is sufficiently hot.
- Better yet, stay away from acetylene torches altogether.
- Wear clothes.
- Use a potholder when removing items from the oven.
- No matter how tempting it is to be one of the animals, stay on the outside of all fences and cages and other enclosures at the zoo.
- When sticking thumbtacks into bulletin boards, press on the flat ends.
 
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l i v e ☆ l a u g h ツ l o v e ♥ g r o w ☼ l i v e ☆ l a u g h ツ l o v e ♥ g r o w ☼ 
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“Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.” -Karl Popper (1902 - 1994): as paraphrased by Ryszard Kapuscinski in ‘The Philosopher as Giant-Slayer’ in the “New York Times Magazine” (1 January 1995)
 
Overheard: We have smart phones, smart watches, smart appliances . . . now all we need are smart people!
 
“He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool.” -Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet (1694 - 1778)): “Le Droit du Seigneur” (1763), part IV, line i
 
“Who lives without folly is not so wise as he thinks.” -François de La Rochefoucauld (also known as François Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)): “Reflections; or, Sentences and Moral Maxims” (1678), Maxim 209
 
“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.” -Euripides (484 B.C.E. - 406 B.C.E.)
 
“If forty million people say a foolish thing, it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.” -W. Somerset Maugham (William Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)): “A Writer’s Notebook” (1946), page 76: ‘1901’
 
Overheard: We are all fools, whether we know it or not.
 
“You can lead a fool to wisdom but you cannot make him think.” -Author Unknown
 
“A fool must now and then be right, by chance.” -William Cowper (1731 - 1800)
 
Two sillies were walking down the street. The first one noticed a compact on the sidewalk and leaned down to pick it up. She opened it, looked in the mirror, and said, “Hmmm, this person looks familiar.” The second one said, “Let me look!” So the first one handed her the compact. The second one looked in the mirror and said, “You silly, it’s me!”
 
“A fool and his money are soon parted, but how did they get together in the first place?” -Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)
 
“The fool wonders, the wise man asks.” -Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
 
“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” -Author Unknown: “The Bible,” ‘Proverbs,’ chapter 13, verse 20
 
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” -William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616): “As You Like It” (1599) Act 5, scene 1; line of fictional character Touchstone
 
Joyce: Why can’t you tell knock-knock jokes to a simpleton?
Joy: Because they go to answer the door.
 
“We are fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” -Author Unknown
 
“I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.” -Charles-Louis de Secondat (Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, also known simply as Montesquieu (1689 - 1755))
 
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” -Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744): “An Essay on Criticism,” (1711), line 625
 
“Everybody plays the fool.” -Author Unknown: words from a love song
 
“The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser.” -Herman Melville (1819 - 1891): “Moby Dick” (1851)
 
Overheard: Why do people who know the least know it the loudest?
 
He trudged along unknowing what he sought,
     And whistled as he went, for want of Thought.
-John Dryden (1631 - 1700): “Fables Ancient and Modern; Translated into Verse, From Homer, Ovid, Boccace, & Chaucer: With Original Poems” (1700), page 544, ‘Cymon and Iphigenia, from Boccace’ [translated to Modern English]
 
Ted: Why couldn’t the simpleton call the police?
Theo: He found the ‘9’ button on the telephone, but couldn’t find the ‘11’ button.
 
“Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.” [translated to English]
“Taciturnitas stulto homini pro sapientia est.” [original Latin]
-Publilius Syrus (85 B.C.E. - 43 B.C.E.): “Sententiae,” Maxim 914
 
“Wise men learn more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.” -Cato (Marcius Porcius Cato, also known as Cato the Elder (234 B.C.E. - 149 B.C.E.)): as quoted in Plutarch: “Parallel Lives” (beginning of second century C.E.)
 
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l i v e ☆ l a u g h ツ l o v e ♥ g r o w ☼ l i v e ☆ l a u g h ツ l o v e ♥ g r o w ☼ 
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Simple Simon
 
Simple Simon met a pieman,
     going to the fair;
Said Simple Simon to the pieman,
      “Let me taste your ware.”
 
Said the pieman to Simple Simon,
      “Show me first your penny,”
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
      “Indeed, I have not any.”
 
Simple Simon went a-fishing
     For to catch a whale;
All the water he could find
     Was in his mother’s pail!
 
Simple Simon went to look
     If plums grew on a thistle;
He pricked his fingers very much,
     Which made poor Simon whistle.
 
He went to catch a dicky bird,
     And thought he could not fail,
Because he had a little salt,
     To put upon its tail.
 
He went for water with a sieve,
     But soon it ran all through;
And now poor Simple Simon
     Bids you all adieu.
 
by Author Unknown
 
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l i v e ☆ l a u g h ツ l o v e ♥ g r o w ☼ l i v e ☆ l a u g h ツ l o v e ♥ g r o w ☼ 
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“His ignorance is encyclopedic.” -S. J. Lec (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909 - 1966)): “Unkempt Thoughts” (1962)
 
“Do not seek after the sages of the past. Seek what they sought.” -Basho (Matsuo Bashō (1644 - 1694))
 
“No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.” -Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865 - 1923)
 
“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.” -Dale Carnegie (Dale Harbison Carnegie (born Dale Breckenridge Carnagey (1888 - 1955)))
 
“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. After some years, it can boast of a long series of successes.” -Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830 - 1916)
 
“The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That’s one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population - the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it’s the fools, no matter where you go in this world, it’s the fools that form the overwhelming majority.” -Henrik Ibsen (Henrik Johan ‘Henrik’ Ibsen (1828 - 1906))
 
“Today is the wise man’s day, tomorrow is the fool’s day. The wise man is the one who, when he sees what ought to be done, does it today. The foolish man, when he sees what ought to be done, says, ‘I will do it tomorrow.’” -Author Unknown
 
“A word to a wise person is sufficient.” [translated to English]
“Verbum sapienti sat est.” [original Latin]
-Author Unknown
 
Simpletons and Sages Quiz
- What is a simpleton?
- What is a sage?
- Can a person be both a simpleton and a sage?
 
“Fools look to tomorrow; wise men use tonight.” -Author Unknown: Scottish proverb
 
Simpletons and Sages Quiz Answers
- A simpleton is sometimes perceived by others as being a fool.
- A sage is a supposed wise or learned person.
- Every human is made of part simpleton and part sage.
 
“The truly wise are always simple - simple friendliness, simple decency, simple goodwill between man and man. It is the little mind that spins complications.” -Eugene P. Berlin
 
“Dare to be wise!” [translated to English]
“Sapere aude!” [original Latin]
-Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 B.C.E. - 8 B.C.E.))
 
This is MFOL! . . . making fun of the mundane . . .