Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters
6 February 1752
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
“Truth rides best In that which looks ridiculous.”
Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "Truth rides best In that which looks ridiculous." by Eugene J. Martin?
Eugene J. Martin41
American artist 1938–2005Related quotes
“And took for truth the test of ridicule.”
George Crabbe (1754–1832) English poet, surgeon, and clergyman
Book viii, "The Sisters".
Tales of the Hall (1819)
Kurt Danziger (1926) German academic
Source: "Does the history of psychology have a future?." 1994, p. 469
“But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth.”
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
"On Truth" in Damn! A Book of Calumny (1918), p. 53
1910s
Context: The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived. Huxley laughed the devils out of the Gadarene swine. Not the laws of the United States but the mother-in-law joke brought the Mormons to surrender. Not the horror of it but the absurdity of it killed the doctrine of infant damnation. But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth. How loudly the barber-surgeons laughed at Huxley—and how vainly! What clown ever brought down the house like Galileo? Or Columbus? Or Darwin?... They are laughing at Nietzsche yet...
“It is the fate of every truth to be an object of ridicule when it is first acclaimed.”
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics
Context: It is the fate of every truth to be an object of ridicule when it is first acclaimed. It was once considered foolish to suppose that black men were really human beings and ought to be treated as such. What was once foolish has now become a recognized truth. Today it is considered as exaggeration to proclaim constant respect for every form of life as being the serious demand of a rational ethic. But the time is coming when people will be amazed that the human race existed so long before it recognized that thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with real ethics. Ethics is in its unqualified form extended responsibility to everything that has life.
Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter
"Great Thought" (19 February 1938), published in The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler (1976)
Context: There are two kinds of truth: the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Neither is independent of the other or more important than the other. Without art, science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science, art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 221
“The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.”
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
"On Truth" in Damn! A Book of Calumny (1918), p. 53
1910s
Context: The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived. Huxley laughed the devils out of the Gadarene swine. Not the laws of the United States but the mother-in-law joke brought the Mormons to surrender. Not the horror of it but the absurdity of it killed the doctrine of infant damnation. But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth. How loudly the barber-surgeons laughed at Huxley—and how vainly! What clown ever brought down the house like Galileo? Or Columbus? Or Darwin?... They are laughing at Nietzsche yet...