FOOLS RUSH IN WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD Definition & Meaning

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 .

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Idioms and Phrases

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.”

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

The ladies had the good sense to remain silent, with the exception of an "Equal Rights" woman, whose wordy interposition clearly proved that "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread!"

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"Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread."

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Still the Manipuris were a constant anxiety, illustrating the well-known saying, “Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.”

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If "fools rush in where angels fear to tread," When wise men follow what is to be said?

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Good men had tried—but fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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