Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery. [ Shakespeare ]

For his dreams,
I wonder he's so simple to trust the mockery of unquiet slumbers. [ William Shakespeare ]

As a man is, so is his God: therefore God was so often an object of mockery. [ Goethe ]

We should distinguish between laughter inspired by joy, and that which arises from mockery. [ Goldsmith ]

A great soul is proof against injustice, pain, and mockery; and it would be invulnerable if it were not open to compassion.

There is no such thing as Liberty in the universe: there can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment. [ John Ruskin ]