These insults are from an era before the English language got boiled
down to 4-letter words.
· A member
of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of
some unspeakable disease."
· "That
depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or
your mistress."
· "He
had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr
· "He
has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston
Churchill
· "I
have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great
pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
· "He
has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the
dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
· "Thank
you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." -
Moses Hadas
· "I
didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of
it." - Mark Twain
· "He
has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.." - Oscar Wilde
· "I am enclosing
two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have
one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
· "Cannot
possibly attend first night, will attend second .... if there is one." -
Winston Churchill, in response.
· "I
feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." -
Stephen Bishop
· "He
is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright
· "I've
just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin
S. Cobb
· "He
is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel
Johnson
· "He
is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating
· "In
order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." -
Charles, Count Talleyrand
· "He
loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker
· "Why
do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" -
Mark Twain
· "His
mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West
· "Some
cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde
· "He
uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than
illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
· "He
has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder
· "I've
had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this
wasn't it." - Groucho Marx
And the
one I like: A preacher said to the trouble maker, “Next time I see your
parents, I’ll insist they get married. – Unknown
"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper
“It’s the presumption that Obama knows how all these industries ought to be operating better than people who have spent their lives in those industries, and a general cockiness going back to before he was president, and the fact that he has no experience whatever in managing anything. Only someone who has never had the responsibility for managing anything could believe he could manage just about everything.” - Thomas Sowell in Reason Magazine
