“Fools rush in and get the best seats”

“For fools rush in where angels fear to tread” was written by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) in An Essay on Criticism (1711). The line is famous and has many parodies. “Fools rush in and get front seats where angels often have to stand” is from the New York City humor magazine Life on June 6, 1895.
 
“Fools rush in — and get the best seats” is from The Publishers’ Weekly in 1964. The Reader’s Digest credited Marybeth Weston for writing “Fools rush in—and get all the best seats” in House & Garden in 1990; Weston is often credited with the line that she was not the first to use.
 
     
Wikiquote: An Essay on Criticism
An Essay on Criticism was the first major poem written by the English writer Alexander Pope (1688-1744). However, despite the title, the poem is not as much an original analysis as it is a compilation of Pope’s various literary opinions. A reading of the poem makes it clear that he is addressing not so much the ingenuous reader as the intending writer. It is written in a type of rhyming verse called heroic couplets.
 
The poem first appeared in 1711, but was written in 1709
(...)
Part III
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.
. Lines 63 to 66. Compare: “Wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch”, William Shakespeare, King Richard III, Act I, Sc. 3.
     
Hathi Trust Digital Library
6 June 1895, Life magazine, pg. 369, col. 2:
FOOLS rush in and get front seats where angels often have to stand.
 
11 August 1895, Fort Wayne (IN) Morning Journal, pg. 11, col. 3:
Fools rush in and get front seats where angels often have to stand.
   
Google Books
May-June 1964, The Publishers’ Weekly, pg. 62:
“Fools rush in — and get the best seats.”
 
Google Books
Encyclopedia of Humor
By Joey Adams
New York, NY: Bonanza Books
1968
Pg. 431:
“Fools rush in — and get the best seats.”
 
10 November 1970, Lowell (MA) Sun, “Wit-ness: George Villaras,” Focus, pg. 7, col. 6:
Fools rush in and get the best seats.
 
Google News Archive
14 March 1979, The Daily News (Virgin Islands), pg. 7, col. 3:
There’s a new slipcover or two, and a few new needlework pillows—including one that reads: “Fools Rush in and Get the Best Seats.”
   
Google Books
The Reader’s Digest
Volume 137
1990
Pg. 148:
Fools rush in—and get all the best seats.
— Quoted by Marybeth Weston in House & Garden
 
Google Books
Pink Floyd:
Through The Eyes Of The Band, Its Fans, Friends, And Foes
By Bruno MacDonald
New York, NY: Da Capo Press
1997, ©1996
Pg. 29:
Now, there’s an old adage which says: ‘Fools rush in, and get the best seats’ - and that, by a strange quirk of good fortune, is exactly what happened.
 
Google Books
Murphy’s Law (26th Anniversary Edition)
By Arthur Bloch
New York, NY: The Berkley Publishing Group
2003
Pg. 162:
Wise Fan’s Lament
Fools rush in — and get the best seats
 
Google Books
The Words of Extraordinary Women
By Carolyn Warner
New York, NY: Newmarket Press
2010
Pg. 96:
“Fools rush in—and get all the best seats.” —MARYBETH WESTON