Sunday, January 19, 2020 – Insults and Ridicule
A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation. ~ Moliere
Flattery and insults raise the same question: What do you want? ~ Mason Cooley
Re-examine all that you have been told. Dismiss that which insults your soul. ~ Walt Whitman
I love it when someone insults me. That means that I don’t have to be nice anymore. ~ Billy Idol
It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting. ~ Epictetus
Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Daily life is governed by an economic system in which the production and consumption of insults tends to balance out. ~ Raoul Vaneigem
There are two insults no human being will endure: that he has no sense of humor, and that he has never known trouble. ~ Sinclair Lewis
A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults. ~ Louis Nizer
We should be careful of the insults we fling at others, lest they return and land at our feet, newly minted to apply to those who had first coined them. ~ Alexander McCall Smith
Young people soon give, and forget insults, but old age is slow in both. ~ Joseph Addison
Old age is an insult. It’s like being smacked. ~ Lawrence Durrell
By indignities men come to dignities. ~ Francis Bacon
Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. ~ Sam Brown
Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it. ~ Descartes
Calumny is only the noise of madmen. ~ Diogenes of Sinope
No one can be as calculatedly rude as the British, which amazes Americans, who do not understand studied insult and can only offer abuse as a substitute. ~ Paul Gallico
You will find that silence or very gentle words are the most exquisite revenge for insult. ~ Judge Hall
The way to procure insults is to submit to them: a man meets with no more respect than he exacts. ~ William Hazlitt
The only gracious way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can’t ignore it, top it; if you can’t top it, laugh at it; if you can’t laugh at it, it’s probably deserved. ~ Russell Lynes
It is often better not to see an insult than to avenge it. ~ Seneca
You are an idiot, a retard, and whatever else you just called me. ~ James Dye
It is easy to forgive an insult, but harder to forget one. ~ Michael Lipsey
Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress. ~ Judith Martin
Looking back at all the people I have insulted, I am mildly surprised that I am still allowed to exist. ~ Auberon Waugh
There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. ~ Lord Chesterfield
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally. ~ Oscar Wilde
A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me. ~ Frederick Douglass
A stiff apology is a second insult… The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt. ~ G. K. Chesterton
One insult pocketed soon produces another. ~ Thomas Jefferson
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. ~ Sigmund Freud
I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely. ~ Josephine Baker
I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure – that is all that agnosticism means. ~ Clarence Darrow
Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness. ~ Stephen Fry
To insult someone we call him “bestial.” For deliberate cruelty and nature “human” might be the greater insult. ~ Isaac Asimov
There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god. ~ John B. S. Haldane
If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion. ~ Edmond de Goncourt
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer. ~ Charles de Secondat
Insult is powerful. Insult begets both rage and humor and often at the same time. ~ Suzanne Fields
The point of quotations is that one can use another’s words to be insulting. ~ Carolyn Gold Heilbrun
If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon. ~ Johannes Brahms
People look at you, and they’ve got just the perfect little box for you, the perfect category. Call you a redneck. Call you a hillbilly. Like those were insults. ~ Travis Tritt
To say ‘we’ and mean ‘I’ is one of the most recondite insults. ~ Theodor Adorno
I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.
He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool. ~ Brigham Young
How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule? ~ Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics: Letter Concerning Enthusiasm
There is nothing one sees oftener than the ridiculous and magnificent, such close neighbors that they touch. [L’on ne saurait mieux faire voir que le magnifique et le ridicule sont si voisins qu’ils se touchent.] ~ Bernard de Bovier de Fontenelle, Dialogues des Morts
Ridicule more often settles things more thoroughly and better than acrimony. [Ridiculum acri fortius ac melius magnas plerumque secat res.] ~ Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), Satires
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, Letter to M. Damilaville, May 16, 1767
One does not lash what lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded. ~ Paul Klee
I know that there are things that never have been funny, and never will be. And I know that ridicule may be a shield, but it is not a weapon. ~ Dorothy Parker
I believe they talked of me, for they laughed consumedly. ~ George Farquhar
Scoff not at the natural defects of any which are not in their power to amend. It is cruel to beat a cripple with his own crutches. ~ Thomas Fuller
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us. ~ Thomas Jefferson
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. ~ Thomas Jefferson
Ridicule is the language of the devil. ~ Thomas Carlyle
Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities. ~ Oscar Wilde
Ridicule has historically proven itself a rickety fence for great ideas. ~ Vanna Bonta
When superior people hear of the Way, they carry it out with diligence. When middling people hear of the Way, it sometimes seems to be there, sometimes not. When lesser people hear of the Way, they ridicule it greatly. If they didn’t laugh at it, it wouldn’t be the Way. ~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight. ~ Milan Kundera
Society is a republic. When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous or more intellectually gifted than others. Whoever, by the irresistible force of genius, rises above the common herd is certain to be ostracized by society, which will pursue him with such merciless derision and detraction that at last he will be compelled to retreat into the solitude of his thoughts. ~ Heinrich Heine
To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize. ~ Blaise Pascal
Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, a hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. ~ Edward Gibbon
Reason is the test of ridicule, not ridicule the test of truth. ~ William Warburton
Ridicule is a weak weapon when pointed at a strong mind; but common people are cowards and dread an empty laugh. ~ Martin Farquhar Tupper
The greatest height of heroism to which an individual, like a people, can attain is to know how to face ridicule. ~ Miguel de Unamuno
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
If ridicule were employed to laugh men out of vice and folly, it might be of some use. ~ Joseph Addison
He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without a hilt. ~ Walter Savage Landor
Ridicule has always been the enemy of enthusiasm, and the only worthy opponent to ridicule is success. ~ Oliver Goldsmith
Just Above Sunset 