ridicule

Ridicule is a public confession of fear.

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.

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.

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.

O to be self-balanced for contingencies, To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs as the trees and the animals do.

How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule?

Truth, 't is 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.

"Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas" From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.

Ridicule is the best test of truth.