April Fools

Volpone:

Fools, they are the only nation
Worth men's envy, or admiration:
Free from care or sorrow-taking,
Selves and others merry making:
All they speak or do is sterling.
Your fool he is your great man's darling,
And your ladies' sport and pleasure;
Tongue and bauble are his treasure.
E'en his face begetteth laughter,
And he speaks truth free from slaughter;
He's the grace of every feast,
And sometimes the chiefest guest;
Hath his trencher and his stool,
When wit waits upon the fool:
O, who would not be
He, he, he?

Coleridge: "Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people, because they have a power of looking at such persons as objects of amusement of another race altogether." 

Irish comedian Dave Allen (1936–2005): "I still think of myself as I was 25 years ago... Then I look in a mirror and see an old bastard and realise it's me".

Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian revolutionary who fought the Bolsheviks: "War is when your government tells you who your enemy is, revolution is when you figure it out for yourself." (Acknowledgements to Christopher Newbury.)

Professor John Mearsheimer yesterday: "If there were Nuremberg trials right now where the Israelis and the Americans were brought before the court President Trump along with President Netanyahu and many of their advisors would be hanged." Netanyahu is a PM. He is right - starting an illegal war was the crime for which the German defendants were hanged.