“Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.”

— Montesquieu

La raillerie est un discours en faveur de son esprit contre son bon naturel.
Pensées Diverses

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La raillerie est un discours en faveur de son esprit contre son bon naturel.

Pensées Diverses

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Montesquieu 34

French social commentator and political thinker 1689–1755

- Goa

“Raillery is a kind of mirth which takes possession of the imagination, and shows every object in an absurd light; wit combines more or less softness or harshness.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), II. On Difference of Character

“Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IX, 3
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX

“Humour is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour. For a subject which would not bear raillery is suspicious; and a jest which would not bear a serious examination is certainly false wit.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour (1709), Part 1, Sec. 5, incorrectly attributing it to Gorgias via Aristotle.
Misattributed

“Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen.”

Golda Meir (1898–1978) former prime minister of Israel

Speech to the Knesset, reported in Ner (October 1961)

“No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter II, Section 17, pg. 102

“Truth, 'tis suppos'd, may bear all Lights: and one of those principal Lights or natural Mediums, by which Things are to be view'd, in order to a thorow Recognition, is Ridicule it-self, or that Manner of Proof by which we discern whatever is liable to just Raillery in any Subject.”

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and Earl

Vol. 1, p. 38; "Sensus Communis".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

“It may be said that his wit shines at the expense of his memory.”

Alain-René Lesage book Gil Blas

Book III, ch. 11. Compare: "The Right Honorable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts", Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Speech in Reply to Mr. Dundas, in Sheridaniana.
Gil Blas (1715-1735)

“It is better to be a good human being than to be a bad one. It is just naturally better.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

My Heart's in the Highlands (1939)

“Speciesism—the word is not an attractive one, but I can think of no better term—is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species.”

Peter Singer book Animal Liberation

Source: Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals (1975), Ch. 1: All Animals Are Equal

“Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.”

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Montesquieu 34

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