To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous. ~ Chinese Proverbs
The first drink makes you a frisky gazelle, the second an impetuous zebra, the third a roaring lion, and with the fourth you become a silly donkey. ~ Turkish Proverbs
A silly daughter teaches her mother how to bear children. ~ Ethiopian Proverbs
What makes us discontented with our condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of the happiness of others. ~ French Proverbs
Young folk, silly folk; old folk, cold folk. ~ Dutch Proverbs
Nothing is nobler than politeness, and nothing more ridiculous than ceremony. ~ Traditional Proverb
Quotations about Ridicule
The talent of turning men into ridicule, and exposing to laughter those one converses with, is the gratification of little minds and ungenerous tempers. A young man with this cast of mind cuts himself off from all manner of improvement. ~ Joseph Addison
Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity. ~ Christopher Morley
Look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it. ~ Jules Renard
Ridicule is a weak weapon when pointed at a strong mind; but common people are cowards and dread an empty laugh. ~ Martin Tupper
Absurdities die of self-strangulation. ~ Thomas Chandler Haliburton
No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live. ~ Mark Twain
In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
To the man of thought almost nothing is really ridiculous. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Of all the authorities to which men can be called to submit, the wisdom of our ancestors is the most whimsically absurd. ~ Jeremy Taylor
I believe they talked of me, for they laughed consumedly. ~ George Farquhar
The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Ridicule is often employed with more power and success than severity. ~ Horace
When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him. ~ Thomas Szasz
Ridicule often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble. ~ Sir Walter Scott
The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor. ~ William Feather
It is easy for a man who sits idle at home, and has nobody to please but himself, to ridicule or censure the common practices of mankind. ~ Samuel Johnson
Some men are, in regard to ridicule, like tin-roofed buildings in regard to hail: all that hits them bounds rattling off; not a stone goes through. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only. ~ Thomas Hobbes
One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty. ~ Jane Austen
At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face. ~ Albert Camus
Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. ~ Oliver Goldsmith
In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment. ~ Horace
I have always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: “My God, make our enemies very ridiculous!” God has granted it to me. ~ Voltaire
Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life. ~ Joseph Addison
No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately. ~ Michel Eyquem De Montaigne
There is nothing so absurd as not to have been said by a philosopher. ~ Cicero
I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I’m introduced to one I wish I thought What Jolly Fun! ~ Sir Walter Raleigh
Ridicule more often settles things more thoroughly and better than acrimony. ~ Horace
He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without a hilt. ~ Walter Savage Landor
It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal. ~ Oscar Wilde
It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can be no more absurd than it can be the opposite of absurd, whatever that opposite may be. ~ Archibald MacLeish
Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit. ~ Jean De La Bruyere
Some aspects of success seem rather silly as death approaches. ~ Donald A. Miller
Nature meant for me a wife, a silly harmless household Dove, fond without art; and kind without deceit. ~ John Dryden
Nothing is more ridiculous than ridicule. ~ Lord Shaftesbury
Generally the ridiculous touches the sublime. ~ Jean Francois Marmontel
People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization. ~ Agnes Repplier
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. ~ Samuel Johnson
My turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then. ~ Lord Byron
Raillery is more insupportable than wrong; because we have a right to resent injuries, but are ridiculous in being angry at a jest. ~ Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
Sneering springs out of the wish to deny; and wretched must that state of mind be that wishes to take refuge in doubt. ~ Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it. ~ Vaclav Havel
For man learns more readily and remembers more willingly what excites his ridicule than what deserves esteem and respect. ~ Horace
If ridicule were employed to laugh men out of vice and folly, it might be of some use. ~ Joseph Addison
We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects. ~ William Hazlitt
Resort is hard to ridicule only when reason is against us. ~ Thomas Jefferson
Do not sanction an absurdity. ~ Mme. de Genlis
Take time every day to do something silly. ~ Philipa Walker
Ridicule, the weapon of all others most feared by enthusiasts of every description, and which, from its predominance over such minds, often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble. ~ Sir Walter Scott
We find it hard to believe that other people’s thoughts are as silly as our own, but they probably are. ~ James H. Robinson
I’m not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You’re as old as you feel. ~ Elizabeth Arden
Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion. ~ Ambrose Bierce
I have lived one hundred years; and I die with the consolation of never having thrown the slightest ridicule upon the smallest virtue. ~ Bernard de Bovier de Fontenelle
Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. ~ Rose Franken
Oh that wisdom was half as zealous for converts as ridicule. ~ Franz Grillparzer
Absurdity refutes itself. ~ Thomas Bartholin
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth. ~ Albert Camus
There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
That passage is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand round the corner of nonsense. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Getting divorced just because you don’t love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do. ~ Zsa Zsa Gabor
The greater absurdities are, the more strongly they evince the falsity of that supposition from whence they flow. ~ Francis Atterbury
Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented. ~ Andre Gide
The absurd has meaning only in so far as it is not agreed to. ~ Albert Camus
It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton
I distrust those sentiments that are too far removed from nature, and whose sublimity is blended with ridicule; which two are as near one another as extreme wisdom and folly. ~ Andre-Francois Boureau Deslandes
Ridicule has always been the enemy of enthusiasm, and the only worthy opponent to ridicule is success. ~ Oliver Goldsmith
Ridicule, which chiefly arises from pride, a selfish passion, is but at best a gross pleasure, too rough an entertainment for those who are highly polished and refined. ~ Henry Home
We have thought that because children are young they are silly. We have forgotten the blind stirring, the reaching outward of our own youth. ~ Mabel Louise Robinson
A man that is ashamed of passions that are natural and reasonable is generally proud of those that are shameful and silly. ~ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again. ~ Thomas Paine
A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule. ~ John Stuart Mill
Ridicule has followed the vestiges of truth, but never usurped her place. ~ Walter Savage Landor
