Oliver Goldsmith Quotes

Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.

Ridicule is about the most powerful weapon possible.

Comedy is brutal. It's powerful, though.

You can laugh at somebody because they are innocent, and because they are naive or they are about to walk into a wall, but if somebody's giving you stuff, if somebody's talking, giving you their take on things, what makes you laugh, generally speaking, is going to be somebody who is telling it in an angry way.

Satire is focused bitterness.

And humor has always been a weapon. You want to get even on somebody? You want to attack somebody? Make fun of them.

Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.

From my experience, politicians are much more uncomfortable being made fun of than they are being preached at and screeched at - you know, and the soapbox routine. They're much more uneasy knowing they're a target of ridicule.

Facetiousness is allowable when it is the most proper instrument of exposing things apparently base and vile to due contempt.

I think to simply make fun of something isn't particularly interesting. I try to not just do a parody of something or belittle something or disparage something.

I don't really like using ridicule as a form of humor.

Insult is powerful. Insult begets both rage and humor and often at the same time.

Bad times for the Republic are great times for satire.

As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot help but laugh.

Ridicule is more powerful than any argument.

Cartoons are ridicule and satire by definition. A negative attitude is the nature of the art.

Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

We make fun of our leaders.

I've done pretty well as a professional fed-up. The tools of my trade so far have been irony, tongue-in-cheek mockery, and supercilious contempt, but these are highly civilized weapons designed for 18th-century French salons.

I look at people, and I like to laugh at them.

Frank Williams says I'm nothing but a money-grabber. I can only laugh at that.

Editorial pages all say, 'Well, the other guy has a point, too. It remains to be seen how this will come out. We certainly hope it comes out fine; blah, blah.' Cartoonists don't go that way. Our job is to stick out our tongues, to show a big raspberry to whatever pompous jerk happens to be mouthing off.

Ridicule is the only honorable weapon we have left.

ridicule may be a shield, but it is not a weapon.