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  • Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
    Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
    Foolish people are often reckless, attempting feats that the wise avoid. This saying is from “An Essay on Criticism,” by Alexander Pope.
  • fools rush in where angels fear to tread
    fools rush in where angels fear to tread
    Ignorant or inexperienced individuals get involved in situations that wiser persons would avoid, as in I've never heard this symphony and here I am conducting it—oh well, fools rush in where angels fear to tread, or He tried to mediate their unending argument—fools rush in. This expression, so well known it is sometimes shortened as in the second example, is a quotation from Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism (1709): “No place so sacred from such fops is barr'd ... Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead; For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread

Cultural  
  1. Foolish people are often reckless, attempting feats that the wise avoid. This saying is from “An Essay on Criticism,” by Alexander Pope.


fools rush in where angels fear to tread Idioms  
  1. Ignorant or inexperienced individuals get involved in situations that wiser persons would avoid, as in I've never heard this symphony and here I am conducting it—oh well, fools rush in where angels fear to tread, or He tried to mediate their unending argument—fools rush in. This expression, so well known it is sometimes shortened as in the second example, is a quotation from Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism (1709): “No place so sacred from such fops is barr'd ... Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead; For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The poem abounds in such lines as these:— "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

From Halleck's New English Literature by Halleck, Reuben Post

It wasn't that I am so helpful, but that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

From Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Stewart, Elinore Pruitt

It has been said that fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

From An Ohio Woman in the Philippines Giving personal experiences and descriptions including incidents of Honolulu, ports in Japan and China by Conger, Emily Bronson

It is a path where "fools rush in where angels fear to tread".

From America, through the spectacles of an Oriental diplomat by Wu, Tingfang

The whole boundless congregation of mankind, with its everlasting varieties, is thus at once subjected to the sentence of every pretender: And fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.

From Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author by Godwin, William

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