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Fools rush in where angels fear to tread

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The line For fools rush in where angels fear to tread was first written by Alexander Pope in his 1711 poem An Essay on Criticism. The phrase alludes to inexperienced or rash people attempting things that more experienced people avoid. It has since entered the general English lexicon as an idiom.[1]

The phrase, in full or in part, has been used countless times since 1711.

Context

After having described the vices of "an incorrigible Poet", Pope lays in to "an impertinent Critic":[2]

The Bookful Blockhead, ignorantly read,
With Loads of Learned Lumber in his Head,
With his own Tongue still edifies his Ears,
And always List'ning to Himself appears.
...
Name a new Play, and he's the Poet's Friend,
Nay show'd his Faults—but when wou'd Poets mend?
No Place so Sacred from such Fops is barr'd,
Nor is Paul's Church more safe than Paul's Church-yard:
Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead;
For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.[3]

— Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, lines 612-615, 620-625

But, by contrast:

Distrustful Sense with modest Caution speaks;
It still looks home, and short Excursions makes;
But ratling Nonsense in full Vollies breaks;[3]

— Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, lines 626-628

Full line

  • Fools rush in where angels fear to tread is used by Edmund Burke in his work Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
  • Fools rush in where angels fear to tread is used in Abraham Lincoln's speech made at Peoria, Illinois October 16, 1854
  • "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread" is used by Burton Egbert Stevenson in his work "The Gloved Hand" (1913)
  • "Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)", a 1940 song written by Johnny Mercer and Rube Bloom, sung by Frank Sinatra, Ricky Nelson, Bow Wow Wow and many others
  • Cary Grant as the character Dudley changes the line in the movie The Bishop's Wife to "angels rush in where fools fear to tread".
  • The line Fools rush in where angels fear to tread appears in Bob Dylan's song "Jokerman"
  • The line Fools rush in where angels fear to tread appears in the 1984 film Supergirl
  • The line Fools rush in where angels fear to tread is used in the film Afro Samurai: Resurrection (2009)
  • The line Fools rush in where angels fear to tread is used in the animated series Digimon
  • The line Fools rush in where angels fear to tread is used in the animated series Ao no Exorcist (episode 21)
  • The line Fools rush in where angels fear to tread is used in the animated series One Piece (episode 742)
  • The line Fools rush in where angels fear to tread is used by the Indian social reformer B. R. Ambedkar in Who Were the Shudras? and in many places like Constitution Assembly debates also.
  • The line is misquoted by Neil in The Young Ones, season 2, episode 5 episode entitled, "Sick".
  • The line is misquoted by Diane in Cheers, season 2, episode 1 entitled "Power Play."
  • The line is rendered as "Y'know, fools rush in where angels take a break" in the song "So Alone" by Lou Reed, from the album Growing Up in Public
  • The line is rendered in Lerner & Loewe's Camelot (1960) by the character of Mordred as, "I cannot wait to rush in where angels fear to go" in the song "The Seven Deadly Virtues".

First half only

Second half only

  • The video game Planetfall, originally packaged with a booklet titled "Today's Stellar Patrol: Boldly Going Where Angels Fear to Tread."
  • In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Captain James T. Kirk said: "I'm a great one for rushing in where angels fear to tread."
  • In the Doctor Who episode "The Satan Pit", the Doctor uses this line while commenting on human curiosity.
  • In the video game Borderlands 2, a mission toward the end of the main story is called "Where Angels Fear to Tread."
  • In the Deep Purple song "You Keep On Moving", written by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, released on the 1975 album Come Taste the Band.
  • In the Inkubus Sukkubus song "Vampyre Erotica," from the 1997 album of the same name.
  • In his third lecture in the UCLA lecture series "The Human Situation" from 1959, Aldous Huxley claims that "what has become abundantly clear is that man has rushed in where angels fear to tread" in his intervention into nature.[5]
  • In the Symphony X song "Legend" from the 2015 album Underworld. "Steal away through the land of the dead where angels fear to tread."
  • In “The Ballad of Thunder Road” by Robert Mitchum there is a line “The mountain boy took roads that even angels fear to tread.”

Novels and films

Music

Jocular inversion

The title of the book by the British author Jilly Cooper: Angels rush in (1990) alludes to the jocular colloquial use of the inverted phrase "Angels rush in where fools fear to tread".

References

  1. ^ "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread". Retrieved 20 September 2017.
  2. ^ Pope, Alexander (1963). Butt, John (ed.). The Poems of Alexander Pope (a one-volume edition of the Twickenham text ed.). Yale University Press. p. 143. ISBN 0300003404. OCLC 855720858.
  3. ^ a b Pope, Alexander (1963). Butt, John (ed.). The Poems of Alexander Pope (a one-volume edition of the Twickenham text ed.). Yale University Press. pp. 163–164. ISBN 0300003404. OCLC 855720858.
  4. ^ https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tmzqbhxouspqdgtzgkkwabtznay?lyrics=1&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics
  5. ^ Huxley, Aldous. "Lecture 3 – More Nature in Art", The Human Situation, UCLA, 2 March 1959. Retrieved on 4 September 2015.
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