⁷ Excess speech is not becoming to a fool;
    still less is false speech to a ruler.^[a]

¹⁰ A rebuke strikes deeper into a discerning person
    than a hundred blows into a fool.

¹² Better to meet a she-bear robbed of its cubs
    than to confront a fool immersed in folly.^(A)

¹⁶ Why should fools have a price in hand
    to buy wisdom when they have no mind to learn?

²⁴ The discerning person looks to wisdom,
    but the eyes of a fool to the ends of the earth.^(A)
25 Foolish children are a grief to their father
    and bitterness to her who bore them.^(B)

²⁸ Even fools who keep silent are considered wise;
    when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent.^(A)