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Sayings about Ridicule

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