Folly

Folly

In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs. In the original use of the word, these buildings had no other use, but from the 19th to 20th centuries the term was also applied to highly decorative buildings which had secondary practical functions such as housing, sheltering or business use.

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Famous quotes containing the word folly:

    If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
    William Blake (1757–1827)

    Fashionable women regard themselves, and are regarded by men, as pretty toys or as mere instruments of pleasure; and the vacuity of mind, the heartlessness, the frivolity which is the necessary result of this false and debasing estimate of women, can only be fully understood by those who have mingled in the folly and wickedness of fashionable life ...
    Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)

    Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a foul odor; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.
    Bible: Hebrew, Ecclesiastes 10:1.