from the sublime to the ridiculous

Idioms  

1. From the beautiful to the silly, from great to puny. For example, They played first Bach and then an ad jingle—from the sublime to the ridiculous. The reverse, from the ridiculous to the sublime, is used with the opposite meaning. Coined by Tom Paine in The Age of Reason (1794), in which he said the two are so closely related that it is but one step from one to the other, the phrase has been often repeated in either order.

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Example Sentences

Wan works mightily to lend the stiff action flamboyant style, but his garish near-miss proves that there’s only a short misstep from the sublime to the ridiculous.

From The New Yorker • Dec. 29, 2018

Paul Schrader’s résumé ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous.

From Washington Post • May 25, 2018

Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, in the 1st century A.D. the poet Gaius Petronius Arbiter poked fun at the excesses of Roman society in a fictional work called “Satyricon.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 30, 2016

Triple Masters winner Phil Mickelson veered from the sublime to the ridiculous as he ballooned to a 76, matching his previous worst opening round at the championship in 1997 and 2007.

From Reuters • Apr. 11, 2014

In mediæval carvings, as in many of their explanations, it is scarcely a step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

From The Grotesque in Church Art by Wildridge, T. Tindall