Daily Inspiration Quote by George Ade

“A good folly is worth what you pay for it” lands like a Midwestern needle: small, plainspoken, and absolutely aimed at your wallet. George Ade, a playwright who built his reputation on skewering American manners, isn’t romanticizing stupidity so much as defending pleasure against the puritan accounting of “sense.” The line borrows the language of commerce - worth, pay - to smuggle in a mischievous moral: not everything valuable looks rational on a ledger.

The intent is double-edged. On one side, Ade gives permission to indulge: the trip you shouldn’t take, the night out, the ridiculous hobby, the flamboyant risk. On the other, he’s warning that folly has an invoice and pretending otherwise is the real naivete. A “good” folly isn’t free; it’s chosen, owned, and paid for without whining. That adjective does heavy lifting, separating a deliberate splurge from the kind of blunder that masquerades as fate.

Subtextually, it’s a jab at respectability culture, the social impulse to justify desire with productivity. Ade’s era - industrializing America, rising consumer culture, status anxiety - bred a new class of people fluent in price and terrified of seeming wasteful. He flips that anxiety: waste can be honest, even clarifying, if it delivers what it promised.

As a playwright, Ade understands audiences: we pay for illusions all the time. The trick isn’t avoiding folly; it’s choosing the kind that actually returns something - laughter, freedom, a story worth keeping - and accepting the cost without self-pity.