Ridicule Quotes
More Ridicule Quotes
We are a democracy, and there is only one way to get a democracy on its feet in the matter of its individual, its social, its municipal, its State, its National conduct, and that is by keeping the public informed about what is going on.There isnot a crime, there isnot a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away.
joseph pulitzer— c.1910 Quoted in Alleyne Ireland An Adventure with a Genius, ch.4.
Let the rabbit of free enterprise out of its velveteen bag and too many people would have to be fired, too much idiocy exposed to the light of judgment or ridicule, too much vanity sacrificed to the fires of efficiency. Such a catastrophe obviously would threaten the American way of life, to say nothing of the belief in free markets.
lewis h. lapham— Chapter 9, Coined Souls, p. 232
I am convinced that the majority of the religious hierarchy today deplores the hardship inflicted on our people. I am referring not only to the martyrs but of the families who have been dispersed and terrified, who have no resources, and to the four million unemployed who are suffering from the economic chaos of a country which only a year earlier was giving employment to a million foreigners. Those who have chosen to serve God must feel profoundly sad at seeing ridicule poured on the most sacred principles of our religion.
muhammad reza pahlavi— Page 167 (The Shah's Story (1980))
To how much lying, extravagance, hypocrisy and servilism does not the fear of ridicule lead? Human respect makes us cowards and slaves. It may deter from evil, but much oftener it drives to baseness. “We are too much afraid,” said Cato, “of death, exile and poverty.”
john lancaster spalding— p. 171 (Aphorisms and Reflections (1901))
Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce— 1906 The Cynic's Word Book. Retitled The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
The New Labourbrand has beenbadlycontaminated.It is the object of constant criticism and, even worse, ridicule.
— 2000 Internal memo, May, later leaked to the press. In The Guardian, 20 Jul.
Le ridicule qu’on a augmente toujours en proportion qu’on s’en défend.
pierre choderlos de laclos— One's ridiculousness increases in proportion as one denies it.Letter 141: La Marquise de Merteuil to le Vicomte de Valmont. Trans. Richard Aldington (1924). [13]
And took for truth the test of ridicule.
George Crabbe— Book viii, "The Sisters".
When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power.
anne louise germaine de staël— Bk. 4, ch. 3
We grow tired of every thing but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.
william hazlitt— "On Application to Study"
I recall an incident involving the late George Stigler at a conference in Spain in the 1980s. Hearing that I had written a book on reason and natural law, Stigler started to ridicule reason, going so far as to say that there is as much reason in a monkey's antics as in any human act. At that point I asked him whether he was trying to tell me something about how he wrote his books; he gave me a blank stare and stormed out of the room.
frank van dun— "Argumentation Ethics and the Philosophy of Freedom," Ludwig von Mises Institute (2006-08-22)
A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals.
lin yutang— Ch. I : The Awakening
He is in this sense the most original poet now living, and the one whose writings could the least be spared: for they have no substitute elsewhere. The vulgar do not read them; the learned, who see all things through books, do not understand them; the great despise. The fashionable may ridicule them: but the author has created himself an interest in the heart of the retired and lonely student of nature, which can never die.
william wordsworth— William Hazlitt The Spirit of the Age, "Mr. Wordsworth" (1825).
Tell those who indulge in these drugs ( LSD , marijuana , and other types) that it is harmful physically, mentally and spiritually, and that they should stop the taking of these drugs. Your duty is to tell them, regardless of whether they accept what you say, or if they ridicule or humiliate you, to boldly and bravely face these things.
meher baba— To Robert Dreyfuss in 1964, p. 6403
A lost love. Deny it who will, ridicule it, treat it as mere imagination and sentiment, the thing is and will be; and women do suffer therefrom, in all its infinite varieties: loss by death, by faithlessness or unworthiness, and by mistaken or unrequited affection.
dinah maria mulock— Ch. 10. (A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858))
I wish I didn't have to introduce the following information, [on reptilian shapeshifting] because it complicates the story and opens me up to mass ridicule. But I'm not afraid to go where information leads me
david icke— The Biggest Secret, ch. 2
I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.
samuel johnson— Letter to Hester Thrale (1783-07-05) [2]
Religion is too important a matter to its devotees to be a subject of ridicule. If they indulge in absurdities, they are to be pitied rather than ridiculed.
Immanuel Kant— A lecture at Königsberg (1775), as quoted in A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources (1946) by H. L. Mencken, p. 1017
We should reward people, not ridicule them, for thinking the impossible.
nassim nicholas taleb— "Learning to Expect the Unexpected," The New York Times (2004-04-08}
In measured tones he answered Madouc: “Your condition lacks dignity; you bring ridicule upon us all.” Madouc gave a stony shrug. “If you do not like what you see, look elsewhere.”
jack vance— Chapter 9, section 4 (p. 928)
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.
frederick douglass— Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845), Chapter 5.
On n'est jamais si ridicule par les qualités que l'on a que par celles que l'on affecte d'avoir.
— The qualities we have do not make us so ridiculous as those which we affect to have.
— François de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes, 134.
How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule?
— Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics, Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, Part I, Section II
Truth, 'tis supposed, may bear all lights; and one of those principal lights or natural mediums by which things are to be viewed in order to a thorough recognition is ridicule itself.
— Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour, Part I, Section I
Aristophanes turns Socrates into ridicule in his comedies, as making the worse appear the better reason.
— Socrates, 5.
Reason is the test of ridicule, and not ridicule the test of truth.
— William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated, Volume I, Dedication to the Freethinkers (1738), 1765 edition, p. 15
We must be on our guard against giving interpretations which are hazardous or opposed to science, and so exposing the word of God to the ridicule of unbelievers.
augustine of hippo— Augustine of Hippo, De genesi ad litteram libri duodecim (The Literal Meaning of Genesis) (415), I, nos. 19, 21, 39 [2]
ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
saul alinsky— p. 128 (Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971))
ridicule may be the evidence of wit or bitterness and may gratify a little mind, or an ungenerous temper, but it is no test of reason or truth.
— A Dictionary of Thoughts, p. 497.
