“Great men of action never mind on occasion being ridiculous; in a sense it is part of their job.”
My Life (1968), Ch.12.
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Oswald Mosley 20
British politician; founder of the British Union of Fascists 1896–1980Related quotes

“A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original”
Source: Brightness Reef (1995), Ch. 25
Context: It's how creativity works. Especially in humans. For every good idea, ten thousand idiotic ones must first be posed, sifted, tried out, and discarded. A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original.

Book 2, chapter 44: Funeral oration, as translated at "In Defense of Democracy" http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/pericles_in-defense-of-democracy.html
Verse 4 is sometimes freely translated as The secret to happiness is freedom. And the secret to freedom is courage.
History of the Peloponnesian War
Context: I could tell you a long story (and you know it as well as I do) about what is to be gained by beating the enemy back. What I would prefer is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she realty is, and should fall in love with her. When you realize her greatness, then reflect that what made her great was men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to fall below a certain standard. If they ever failed in an enterprise, they made up their minds that at any rate the city should not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave to her the best contribution that they could. They gave her their lives, to her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old, the most splendid of sepulchers — not the sepulchre in which their bodies are laid, but where their glory remains eternal in men's minds, always there on the right occasion to stir others to speech or to action. For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark them out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

“I never knew I was capable of being ridiculous over a man. It's a relief.”
Source: Gone Girl

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 202

The Erasmus Reader (1990), p. 141.
Handbook of the Christian Soldier (1503)

“I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humour.”
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1961)