The world is made up, for the most part, of fools and knaves, both irreconcileable foes to truth.
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"Letter to Mr. Clifford, on his Human Reason"; cited from The Works of His Grace, George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham (London: T. Evans, 1770) vol. 2, p. 105.
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Variant (modernized spelling): The world is made up, for the most part, of fools and knaves, both irreconcilable foes to truth.George Villiers Buckingham
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There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.
Samuel (poet Butler
"We find that at present the human race is divided into one wise man, nine knaves, and ninety fools out of every hundred. That is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them, and become 'politicians'; the wise man stands out, because he knows himself to be hopelessly outnumbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics, or philosophy; while the ninety fools plod off under the banners of the nine villains, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice and warfare. It is pleasant to have command, observes Sancho Panza, even over a flock of sheep, and that is why the politicians raise their banners. It is, moreover, the same thing for the sheep whatever the banner. If it is democracy, then the nine knaves will become members of parliament; if fascism, they will become party leaders; if communism, commissars. Nothing will be different, except the name. The fools will be still fools, the knaves still leaders, the results still exploitation. As for the wise man, his lot will be much the same under any ideology. Under democracy he will be encouraged to starve to death in a garret, under fascism he will be put in a concentration camp, under communism he will be liquidated.”
T. H. (Terence Hanbury) White
I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike — and I don't think there really is a distinction between the two — are always dominated by fools, knaves, charlatans and bureaucrats.
Harold Bloom
There are three kinds of fools in this world, fools proper, educated fools and rich fools. The world persists because of the folly of these fools.
Swami Narayanananda
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