When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have a second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there's no holding me.
William FaulknerRead
I know now that what makes a fool is an inability to take even his own good advice.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A fool is someone who fails to follow their own sound advice.
William Faulkner's quote highlights the irony of knowing what is good for oneself yet refusing to act upon that knowledge. It suggests that wisdom is not just about acquiring knowledge, but also about having the ability to implement it in one's life.
Themes
FoolAdviceWisdomSelf-AwarenessKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
During a mentorship session, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of practicing what you preach.
More from William Faulkner
All quotes βI feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.
William FaulknerRead
When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they dont really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not be old enough to desire the fruits of it...his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it...
William FaulknerRead
Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks.
William FaulknerRead
He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that any more than for pride or fear....One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
William FaulknerRead
Ever since then I have believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too.
William FaulknerRead
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