The Praise of Folly Quotes

Nothing is more puerile, certainly, than to treat serious matters triflingly; but nothing is more graceful than to handle light subjects in such a way that you seem to have been anything but trifling. The judgement of others upon me will be what it will be. Yet unless self-love deceives me badly, I have praised folly in a way that is not wholly foolish.

But aside from the fact that I refrain throughout from using names, I have in addition tempered my style that the judicious reader will easily perceive that my end is pleasure rather than censure.

However mortal folk may commonly speak of me (for I am not ignorant how ill the name of Folly sounds, even to the greatest fools), I am she – the only she, I may say–whose divine influence makes gods and men rejoice.

And now you shall hear from me an extemporaneous speech, unlabored, but so much truer for all that. I should not want you to think it is made to show off my wit, as is done by the common run of orators.

So it is from this brisk and silly little game of mine come forth the haughty philosophers (to whose places those are vulgarly called monks have now succeeded), and kings in their scarlet, pious priests, and triply most holy popes; also, finally, that assembly of the gods of the poets, so numerous that Olympus, spacious as it is, can hardly accommodate the crowd.

Old age would not be tolerable to any mortal at all, were it not that I, out of pity for its troubles, stand once more at its right hand; and just as gods of the poets customarily save, by some metamorphoses or other, those who are dying, in like manner I bring those who have one foot in the grave back to their infancy again, for as long as possible; so that the folk are not far off in speaking of them as “in their second childhood.”

For do you not see that the austere fellows who are buried in the study of philosophy, or condemned to difficult and wracking business, grow old even before they have been young–and this because by cares and continual hard driving of their brains they insensibly exhaust their spirits and dry up their radical moisture. On the contrary, my morons are as plump and sleek as the hogs of Acarnania (as the saying is), with complexions well cared for, never feeling the touch of old age; unless as rarely happens, they catch something by contagion from the wise—so true it is that the life of man is not destined to be happy.

In sum, no society, no union in life, could be either pleasant or lasting without me. A people does not for long tolerate its prince, or a master tolerate his servant, a handmaiden her mistress, a teacher his student, a friend his friend, a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a partner his partner, or a boarder his fellow-boarder, except as they mutually or by turns are mistaken, on occasion flatter, on occasion wisely wink, and otherwise soothe themselves with the sweetness of folly.

If something is to be bought, or a contract made, if in short, any of those things without which our daily life could not be carried on must be done, you will say that this wiseacre is no man, but dead wood. Thus he can be of little use to himself, his country, or his family, and all because he is inexpert in everyday matters, and far out of step with general ways of thinking and modes of life among the folk; by the same token he is bound to fall into odium, through the great diversity between his and their lives and minds. For what that passes among mortals everywhere is not full of folly, done by fools in the presence of fools?

As nothing is more foolish than wisdom out of place, so nothing is more imprudent than unseasonable prudence.

Although that double-strength Stoic, Seneca, stoutly denies this, subtracting from the wise man any and every emotion, yet in doing so he leaves him no man at all but rather a new kind of god, or demiurgos, who never existed and will never emerge. Nay to speak more plainly, he creates a marble simulacrum of a man, a senseless block, completely alien to every human feeling.

Consider, among the several kinds of living creatures, do you not observe that the ones which live most happily are those which are farthest from any discipline, and which are controlled by no other master than nature? What could be more happy than the bees—or more wonderful?

And yet a remarkable thing happens in the experience of my fools: from them not only true things, but even sharp reproaches, will be listened to; so that a statement which, if it came from a wise man’s mouth, might be a capital offense, coming from a fool gives rise to incredible delight.

Hence there is either no difference, or if there is a difference, the state of fools is to be preferred. First their happiness costs least. It costs only a little bit of illusion. And second, they enjoy it in the company of so many others. The possession of no good thing is welcome without a companion.

In general, they allow this much to folly, that many times what cannot be refuted by arguments can be parried by laughter. But you may think that exciting laughter by witty remarks, and this by a set method, does not belong to Folly.

If a prince really laid his own life alongside these symbols, I believe he would have the grace to be ashamed of his finery. He would be afraid some nosy satirist might turn the whole spectacle, suited as it is for high tragedy, into laughter and derision.

Were wisdom to descend upon them, how it would inconvenience them! Wisdom, did I say? Nay, even a grain of salt would do it–a grain of that salt which is spoken of by Christ. It would lose them all that wealth and honor, all those possessions, triumphal progresses, offices, dispensations, tributes, and indulgences; it would lose them so many horses, mules, and retainers; so many pleasures.

To work miracles is primitive and old-fashioned, hardly suited it our times; to instruct the people is irksome; to interpret the Holy Scripture is pedantry; to pray is otiose; to shed tears is distressing and womanish; to live in poverty is sordid; to be beaten in war is dishonorable and less than worthy of one who will hardly admit kings, however great, to kiss his foot, and finally, to die is unpleasant, to die on the cross a disgrace.

And although war is so cruel a business that it befits beasts and not men, so frantic that poets feign it is sent with evil purpose by the Furies, so pestilential that it brings with it a general blight upon morals, so iniquitous that is usually conducted by the worst bandits, so impious that it has no accord with Christ, yet our popes, neglecting all their other concerns, make it their only task.

And yet through a cloud, or as in a dream, they know one thing, that they were happiest while they were out of their wits. So they are sorry to come to themselves again and would prefer, of all good things, nothing but to be mad always with this madness. And this is a tiny little taste of that future happiness.