Motley Fool Quotes

All men are fools, if truth be told, but the ones in motley are more amusing than ones with crowns.

Did I offend you?” Lannister said. “Sorry. Dwarfs don’t have to be tactful. Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any damn thing that comes into my head.

If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters. We are Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins make us seem harmless.

„You're Ned Stark's bastard, aren't you?“ Jon felt a coldness pass right through him. He pressed his lips together and said nothing. „Did I offend you?“ Lannister said. „Sorry. Dwarfs don't have to be tactful. Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any damn thing that comes into my head.“ He grinned. „You are the bastard, though.“ „Lord Eddard Stark is my father,“ Jon admitted stiffly. Lannister studied his face. „Yes,“ he said. „I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers.“ „Half brothers,“ Jon corrected. He was pleased by the dwarf's comment, but he tried not to let it show. „Let me give you some counsel, bastard,“ Lannister said. „Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strenght. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.“ Jon was in no mood for anyone's counsel. „What do you know about being a bastard?“ „All dwarfs are bastards in their father's eyes.“ „You are your mother's trueborn son of Lannister.“ „Am I?“ the dwarf replied, sardonic. „Do tell my lord father. My mother died birthing me, and he's never been sure.“ „I don't even know who my mother was,“ Jon said. „Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are.“ He favored Jon with a rueful grin. „Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs.“ And with that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune. When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.

Cucullus non facit monachum; that’s as much to say, as I wear not motley in my brain.

Above the youth's inspired and flashing eyes/I see the motley, mocking fool's-cap rise.

I wear not motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.

My dragons!' she insisted. 'She has finally found a flock to join,' he observed to me. 'Her own kind always pecked her. But the dragons have taken her in.' ...'If a flock of crows is a murder, what should we call a group of dragons?' ... 'A catastrophe of dragons.

For the anarch, little has changed; flags have meaning for him, but not sense. I have seen them in the air and on the ground like leaves in May and November; and I have done so as a contemporary and not just as a historian. The May Day celebration will survive, but with a different meaning. New portraits will head up the processions. A date devoted to the Great Mother is re-profaned. A pair of lovers in the wood pays more homage to it. I mean the forest as something undivided, where every tree is still a liberty tree. For the anarch, little is changed when he strips off a uniform that he wore partly as fool’s motley, partly as camouflage. It covers his spiritual freedom, which he will objectivate during such transitions. This distinguishes him from the anarchist, who, objectively unfree, starts raging until he is thrust into a more rigorous straitjacket.

Fitz!’ Motley greeted me. ‘Hello, stupid!’ she added. The

Wagner: Yet elocution makes the orator; I'm far behind, I feel it more and more. Faust: Seek thou an honest retribution! Be thou no motley, jingling fool! It needs but little elocution To speak good sense by reason's rule. It ye've a message to deliver, Need ye for words be hunting ever?

A Poem of Madness Five links stand out in the chain that binds our will. There’s the primal urges, wound tight in nucleotidal strands. There’s the faith that surges through our clasped and superstitious hands. There’s the politics of kings and queens, and their many rules. There’s culture which forms mobs of motley fools. Last comes our decisions, stacked up in piles of regret that we long to forget.

Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any damn thing that comes into my head.

Has it never occurred to you that that miserable clown may have a soul–a living, struggling human soul, tied down into that crooked hulk of a body and forced to slave for it? You that are so tender-hearted to everything–you that pity the body in its fool’s dress and bells–have you never thought of the wretched soul that has not even motley to cover its horrible nakedness? Think of it shivering with cold, stilled with shame and misery, before all those people–feeling their jeers that cut like a whip–their laughter, that burns like red-hot iron on the bare flesh! Think of it looking round–so helpless before them all–for the mountains that will not fall on it–for the rocks that have not the heart to cover it–envying the rats that can creep into some hole in the earth and hide; and remember that a soul is dumb–it has no voice to cry out–it must endure, and endure, and endure.

Man's lot? He is by mindless lust engendered and by mindless wrench expelled, from the Eden of the womb to the motley, mindless world. He is Chance's fool, the toy of aimless Nature—a mayfly flitting down the winds of Chaos!

A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool; a miserable world! As I do live by food, I met a fool Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, Andrail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms and yet a motley fool. 'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he, 'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:' And then he drew a dial from his poke, And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags: 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear The motley fool thus moral on the time, My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, That fools should be so deep-contemplative, And I did laugh sans intermission An hour by his dial. O noble fool! A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.

The zero card–Le Mat, the Fool–has been likened to the material universe because the mortal sphere is the world of unreality. The lower universe, like the mortal body of man, is but a garment, a motley costume, well likened to cap and bells. Beneath the garments of the fool is the divine substance, however, of which the jester is but a shadow; this world is a Mardi Gras–a pageantry of divine sparks masked in the garb of fools.

The Fool, the Zero card, dressed in motley, dazzled face to the sky, foot about to come off the cliff. Pierrot. It wasn't Michael at all. It was her. You fool...And which one was he? The Magician? She'd thought he was. She'd thought he had it all lined up. The world spinning on his little finger. Or else the Hermit with his lantern, looking for the true world. But no, here he was. The twelfth card. The Hanged Man. Lashed upside down to his cross tree. Unable to go backward or forward

Has it never occurred to you that that miserable clown may have a soul–a living, struggling human soul, tied down into that crooked hulk of a body and forced to slave for it? You that are so tender-hearted to everything–you that pity the body in its fool’s dress and bells–have you never thought of the wretched soul that has not even motley to cover its horrible nakedness? Think of it shivering with cold, stilled with shame and misery, before all those people–feeling their jeers that cut like a whip–their laughter, that burns like red-hot iron on the bare flesh! Think of it looking round–so helpless before them all–for the mountains that will not fall on it–for the rocks that have not the heart to cover it–envying the rats that can creep into some hole in the earth and hide; and remember that a soul is dumb–it has no voice to cry out–it must endure, and endure, and endure.

He will know better when he has outgrown this same callow trick of honesty, and learnt of the great goddess Detraction how to show himself wiser than the wise, by pointing out to the world the fool's motley which peeps through the rents in the philosopher's cloak. Go to, lad! slander thy equals, envy thy betters, pray for an eye which sees spots in every sun, and for a vulture's nose to scent carrion in every rose-bed. If thy friend win a battle, show that he has needlessly thrown away his men; if he lose one, hint that he sold it; if he rise to a place, argue favor; if he fall from one, argue divine justice. Believe nothing, hope nothing, but endure all things, even to kicking, if aught may be got thereby; so shalt thou be clothed in purple and fine linen, and sit in kings' palaces, and fare sumptuously every day." "And

I must see that you survive. Again. And you must see that the Farseer heir inherits the throne.” “And the thought of my survival makes you sad?” I demanded in perplexity. “Oh, no. Never that. The thought of what you must go through to survive fills me with foreboding.” I pushed my plate away, my appetite fled. “I still don’t understand you,” I replied irritably. “Yes you do,” he contradicted me implacably. “I suppose you say you don’t because it is easier that way, for both of us. But this time, my friend, I will lay it cold before you. Think back in the last time we were together. Were there not times when death would have been easier and less painful than life?” His words were shards of ice in my belly, but I am nothing if not stubborn. “Well. And when is that ever not true?” I demanded of him. There have been very few times in my life when I had been able to shock the Fool into silence. That was one of them. He stared at me, his strange eyes getting wider and wider. Then, a grin broke over his face. He stood so suddenly he nearly overturned his chair, and then lunged at me to seize me in a wild hug. He drew a deep breath as if something that had constricted him had suddenly sprung free. “Of course that is true,” he whispered by my ear. And then, in a shout that near deafened me, “Of course it is!” Before I could shrug free of his strangling embrace, he sprang apart from me. He cut a caper that made motley of his ordinary clothes, and then sprang lightly to my tabletop. He flung his arms wide as if he once more performed for all of King Shrewd’s court rather than an audience of one. “Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make. Am I right?” Infectious as his get mood was, I still managed to shake my head. “I have no idea if you are right or wrong.” “Then take my word for it. I am right. For am I not the White Prophet? And are you not my Catalyst, who comes to change the course of all time? Look at you. Not the hero, no. The Changer. The one who, by his existence, enables others to be heroes. Ah, Fitz, Fitz, we are who we are and who we ever must be. And when I am discouraged, when I lose heart to the point of saying, ‘But why cannot I leave him here, to find what peace he may?’, then lo and behold you speak with the voice of the Catalyst, and change once more what I must be. The White Prophet.” I sat looking up at him. Despite my efforts, a smile twisted my mouth. “I thought I enabled other people to be heroes. Not prophets.” “Ah, well.” He leapt lightly to the floor. “Some of us must be both, I fear.

These steps will help you remember that correlation is not causation, and that most market prophecies are based on coincidental patterns. That was the problem in the late 1990s at the Motley Fool website. Its Foolish Four portfolios were based on research claiming that factors like the ratio of a company’s dividend yield to the square root of its stock price could predict future outperformance. In the long run, however, a company’s stock can rise only if its underlying business earns more money.

Never invest in any idea you can’t illustrate with a crayon

Action: Get in touch with your inner investor. Do you know your time horizon and tolerance for risk and loss? Do you want to research stocks? Start an investing journal. Every time you think about buying or selling one of your holdings, make a note of why, how you are feeling at the time, and what would have to go differently for you to change your mind.  

And, most ambitiously, Updike dreamed up an absurdist spectacle (not unlike the drama of the blind cripple and the priests) that drew a large and appreciative lunchtime crowd to a street adjacent to the Yard: a fool disguised as an old man driving an ancient jalopy was hit from behind by a car packed with fellow fools; the old man jumped out and swore at the others in Italian, whereupon they poured from their car carrying sledgehammers and crowbars and proceeded to utterly demolish the jalopy—then drove off lickety-split, leaving the ruined vehicle in the road. In addition to the pranks and the motley

But for now, we simply recommend that for every dollar you put into individual stocks, you roll the same amount into an index fund.

You’ve

the Motley Fool’s goofy ratio couldn’t possibly be causing stock prices to rise, the only sensible conclusion was that its predictive power was an illusion. The Foolish Four portfolio made investors feel like idiots when it lost 14% in the year 2000 alone. Meanwhile, after six years of underperforming the market by nearly two percentage points annually, the Harry Dent–inspired mutual fund shut down in mid-2005 with the Dow mired about 31,000 points below his forecast.

So. I’m to be your servant?” I asked in wry amusement.” “Of course. It’s the perfect guise. You’ll be virtually invisible to all the nobility of Buckkeep. Only other servants will speak to you, and as I intend that you will be a downtrodden, overworked, poorly dressed lackey of a supercilious, overbearing, and insufferable young lord, you will have little time to socialize at all.” He suddenly halted and looked back. One slender, long-fingered hand clasped his chin as h looked down his nose at me. His fake brows and knit amber eyes narrowed as he snapped. “And do not dare to meet my eyes, sirrrah! I will tolerate no impertinence. Stand up straight, keep your place, and speak no word without my leave. Are you clear on these instructions?” “Perfectly.” I grinned at him. He continued to glare at me. Then suddenly the glare was replaced by a look of exasperation. “FitzChivalry, the game is up if you cannot play this role and play it to the hilt. Not just when we stand in the Great Hall of Buckkeep, but every moment of every day when there is the remotest chance that we might be seen. I have been Lord Golden since I arrived, but I am still a newcomer to the Queen’s court, and folk will stare. Chade and Queen Kettricken have done all they could to help me in this ruse, Chade because he perceived how useful I might be, and the Queen because she feels I truly deserve to be treated as a lord.” “And no one recognized you?” I broke in incredulously. He cocked his head. “What would they recognize, Fitz? My dead white skin and colorless eyes? My jester’s motley and my painted face? My capers and cavorting and daring witticisms?” “I knew you the moment I saw you,” I reminded him. He smiled warmly. “Just as I knew you, and would know you when first I met you a dozen lives hence. But few others do. Chade with his assassin’s eyes picked me out, and arranged a private audience at which I made myself known to the Queen. A few others have given me curious glances from time to time, but no one would dare to accost Lord Golden and ask him if fifteen years ago he had been King Shrewd’s jester at this selfsame court. My age appears wrong to them, as does my coloring, as does my demeanor, as does my wealth.” “How can they be so blind?” He shook his head and smiled at my ignorance. “Fitz, Fitz. They never even saw me in the first place. They saw only a jester and a freak. I deliberately took no name when first I arrived here. To most of the lords and ladies of Buckkeep, I was just the fool. They heard my jokes and saw my capers, but they never really saw me.” He gave a small sigh. Then he gave me a considering look. “You made it a name. The Fool. And you saw me. You met my eyes when others looked aside, disconcerted.” I saw the tip of his tongue for a second. “Did you never guess how you frightened me? That all my ruses were useless against the eyes of a small boy?

One way or another, I’m determined to see Hap apprenticed well. But once I do—” “Once you do, you’ll be free to take up your own life again. I’ve a feeling it will call you back to Buckkeep.” “You’ve a ‘a feeling’?” I asked him dryly. “Is this a Fool’s feeling, or a White Prophet’s feeling?” “A time or three, it did seem as if what you predicted came true. Though your predictions were always so nebulous, it seemed to me that you could make them mean anything.” He swallowed. “It was not my prophecies that were nebulous, but your understanding of them. When I arrived, I warned you that I had come back into your life because I must, not because I wanted to. Not that I didn’t want to see you again. I mean only that if I could spare you somehow from all we must do, I would.” “And what is it, exactly, that we must do?” “Exactly?” he queried with a raised eyebrow. “Exactly. And precisely,” I challenged him. “Oh, very well then. Exactly and precisely what we must do. We must save the world, you and I. Again.” He leaned back, tipping his chair onto its back legs. His pale brows shot toward his hairline as he widened his eyes at me. I lowered my brow into my hands. But he was grinning like a maniac and I could not contain my own smile. “Again? I don’t recall that we did it the first time.” “Of course we did. You’re alive aren’t you? And there is an heir to the Farseer throne. Hence, we changed the course of all time. In the rutted path of fate, you were a rock, my dear Fitz. And you have shifted the grinding wheel out of its rut and into a new track. Now, of course, we must see that it remains there. That may be the most difficult part of all.” “And what, exactly and precisely, must we do to ensure that?” I knew his words were bait for mockery, but as ever, I could not resist the question. “It’s quite simple.” He ate a bite of eggs, enjoying my suspense. “Very simple, really.” He pushed the eggs around on his plate, scooped up a bite, then set his spoon down. He looked up at me, and his smile faded. When he spoke, his voice was solemn. “I must see that you survive. Again. And you must see that the Farseer heir inherits the throne.” “And the thought of my survival makes you sad?” I demanded in perplexity. “Oh, no. Never that. The thought of what you must go through to survive fills me with foreboding.” I pushed my plate away, my appetite fled. “I still don’t understand you,” I replied irritably. “Yes you do,” he contradicted me implacably. “I suppose you say you don’t because it is easier that way, for both of us. But this time, my friend, I will lay it cold before you. Think back in the last time we were together. Were there not times when death would have been easier and less painful than life?” His words were shards of ice in my belly, but I am nothing if not stubborn. “Well. And when is that ever not true?” I demanded of him. There have been very few times in my life when I had been able to shock the Fool into silence. That was one of them. He stared at me, his strange eyes getting wider and wider. Then, a grin broke over his face. He stood so suddenly he nearly overturned his chair, and then lunged at me to seize me in a wild hug. He drew a deep breath as if something that had constricted him had suddenly sprung free. “Of course that is true,” he whispered by my ear. And then, in a shout that near deafened me, “Of course it is!” Before I could shrug free of his strangling embrace, he sprang apart from me. He cut a caper that made motley of his ordinary clothes, and then sprang lightly to my tabletop. He flung his arms wide as if he once more performed for all of King Shrewd’s court rather than an audience of one. “Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make. Am I right?

Oh, good sir,” said Bottom. “I knew as soon as I saw your fool’s motley you would bring skill and grand disaster to our play.

You’re Ned Stark’s bastard, aren’t you?” Jon felt a coldness pass right through him. He pressed his lips together and said nothing. “Did I offend you?” Lannister said. “Sorry. Dwarfs don’t have to be tactful. Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any damn thing that comes into my head.” He grinned. “You are the bastard, though.” “Lord Eddard Stark is my father,” Jon admitted stiffly. Lannister studied his face. “Yes,” he said. “I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers.” “Half brothers,” Jon corrected. He was pleased by the dwarf’s comment, but he tried not to let it show. “Let me give you some counsel, bastard,” Lannister said. “Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” Jon was in no mood for anyone’s counsel. “What do you know about being a bastard?” “All dwarfs are bastards in their father’s eyes.

Conversely, restaurants are an excellent example of a very pricey business. First the owners have to lease expensive property, then they have to build a kitchen, then hire a staff, then order the food, manage the inventory, and then shell out more bucks for advertising, and then pay stiff fines to the FDA for spreading mad cow disease.