Ridicule is a kind of gangrene, which if it seizes one part of a character corrupts all the rest.
Source: In Webster's Electronic Quotebase, ed. Keith Mohler, 1994.
-- Samuel Johnson, (Sep 18 1709-1784), English lexicographer, critic; He was remembered for writing the first critique of Shakespeare, 1765 and Dictionary of the English Language, 1755.