It is easier to ridicule than commend. [ Proverb ]
Ridicule dishonors more than dishonor. [ La Rochefoucauld ]
Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away. [ Byron ]
Nothing is more ridiculous than ridicule. [ Shaftesbury ]
Your sayer of smart things has a bad heart. [ Pascal ]
To the man of thought almost nothing is really ridiculous. [ Goethe ]
The crow, stript of its stolen colours, provokes our ridicule. [ Horace ]
Reason is the test of ridicule - not ridicule the test of truth. [ Warburton ]
A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule. [ J. Stuart Mill ]
Ridicule is often employed with more power and success than severity. [ Horace ]
Ridicule has followed the vestiges of truth, but never usurped her place. [ Landor ]
The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen as is the razor's edge invisible. [ Shakespeare ]
Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit against one's good nature. [ Montesquieu ]
Ridicule often cuts the Gordian knot more effectively than the severity of satire. [ Horace ]
If ridicule were employed to laugh men out of vice and folly, it might be of some use. [ Addison ]
He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without a hilt. [ Landor ]
Ridicule often settles matters of importance better and more effectually than severity. [ Horace ]
Old men who preserve the desires of youth lose in consideration what they gain in ridicule. [ Napoleon I ]
Ridicule, while it often checks what is absurd, fully as often smothers that which is noble. [ Scott ]
When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power. [ Mme. de Stael ]
Ridicule is a weak weapon when levelled at a strong mind; but common men are cowards, and dread an empty laugh. [ Tupper ]
Awkwardness is a more real disadvantage than it is generally thought to be; it often occasions ridicule, it always lessens dignity. [ Chesterfield ]
Ridicule has ever been the most powerful enemy of enthusiasm, and properly the only antagonist that can be opposed to it with success. [ Goldsmith ]
Oh! woe to him who first had the cruelty to ridicule the name of old maid, a name which recalls so many sorrowful deceptions, so many sufferings, so much destitution! Woe to him who finds a target for his sarcasm in an involuntary misfortune, and who crowns white hair with thorns! [ E. Souvestre ]
Ridicule intrinsically is a small faculty; we may say, the smallest of all faculties that other men are at the pains to repay with any esteem. It is directly opposed to thought, to knowledge, properly so called; its nourishment and essence is denial, which hovers on the surface, while knowledge dwells far below. [ Carlyle ]