human folly
People's recurring mistakes
Human folly is the tendency of people to act foolishly despite knowing better—the persistent capacity for poor judgment, self-deception, and repeated mistakes.
The phrase often carries a tone of weary resignation: The history of war is a chronicle of human folly.
It suggests not individual error but a collective, perhaps inevitable, feature of the species.
- hubrisRuinous excessive confidence
- impulsivenessActing without forethought
- miscalculationError in estimation
- fool's errandHopeless, pointless task
- sunk costUnrecoverable past outlay
tragic flaw · irony · shortsightedness · self-deception · satire · moral corruption · overconfidence · fatal flaw · parody · groupthink · vanity · emperor's new clothes · bias · herd behavior · cautionary tale · famous last words · ignorance · recklessness
- misanthropymisanthrope, contempt, disdain, loathing, hatred
- comedy elementspunchline, wit, gag, satire, irony
- MoliereTartuffe, Don Juan, Psyche
- Shakespeare comedymistaken identity, comic relief, dramatic irony, Falstaff, Malvolio
human follywisdom
Good judgment from experience
prudence · sagacity · good judgment · sound judgment · discernment
human follycircumspection
Careful consideration of consequences
carefulness · caution · deliberation · foresight · forethought
human follyinsight
Deep perceptive understanding
enlightenment · understanding · intellectual humility · self-knowledge · clear-sightedness