When insults had class

[Jon_Irenicus]

Thanks to Geoffrey for bringing this to my attention:

Forwarded to me by my mother:

These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still
valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to
4-letter words.

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, “If you were my
husband I’d give you poison,” and he said, “If you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

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

“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” - 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).

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” -
Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading
it.” - Moses Hadas

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” -
Abraham Lincoln

“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

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.” Jack E.
Leonard

“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.” - Robert Redford

“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human
knowledge.” - Thomas Brackett Reed

“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

Source.

Can’t believe this guy forgot Schopenhauer:

Schopenhauer despised Fichte and Schelling, but he hated Hegel and described him as ‘that clumsy and nauseating charlatan, that pernicious person, who completely disorganized and ruined the minds of a whole generation.’ On almost any square foot of ground in the landscape of his writings a geyser of wrath may suddenly erupt, spewing out imprecations against the same three men. ‘What was senseless and without meaning at once took refuge in obscure exposition and language. Fichte was the first to grasp and make use of this privilege; Schelling at best equalled him in this, and a host of hungry scribblers without intellect or honesty soon surpassed them both. But the greatest effrontery in serving up sheer nonsense, in scrabbling together senseless and maddening webs of words, such as had previously been heard only in madhouses, finally appeared in Hegel…’ Hegel, said Schopenhauer, was ‘a commonplace, inane, loathsome, repulsive and ignorant charlatan, who with unparalleled effrontery compiled a system of crazy nonsense that was trumpeted abroad as immortal wisdom by his mercenary followers…’ I do not think anything in the whole history of philosophy compares with this invective by one now world-famous philosopher against another, especially when one considers that they were near-contemporaries and colleagues.

Source.

-Jon

[histhasthai]

@Jon Irenicus

These glorious insults

This reminded me of something I heard recently. It’s more of a self-deprecating quip than an insult, but I was reading about some well-respected scientist type known for his ego (I wish I could remember who, it’ll come to me later), who said that the reason his marriage was so successful is that he and his wife are both in love with the same man.

[Juan]

Churchill ? Is that the same guy morally responsible for burning hundreds of thousands of people alive ? Oh, but he was such gentleman…

[Morty]

Even murderers can be clever with words, indeed, that tends to be useful to such persons.

[wombatron]

Indeed. Think of Hannibal Lector [:)]

[au1]

Thank you for this lovely post. I may have cleared my nostrils with tea, but it was worth the read.

[banned]

My English AP test had a great excerpt insulting Jeremy Bentham. It was hard to keep from laughing during the test. I cant find it though, but It was comparing him to a mentally challenged person.

[jamesredford]

Churchill is a depraved monster:

Three months before the Lusitania sinking, Winston Churchill wrote to the president of the English Board of Trade: “[It is] most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hope especially of embroiling the U.S.A. with Germany. … For our part, we want the traffic–the more the better and if some of it gets into trouble, better still.”

“Remember the Lusitania: Two new books reëxamine the disaster,” John Updike, The New Yorker, July 1, 2002 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/07/01/020701crbo_books?currentPage=all

---

[In January 1915 Winston Churchill declared to Margot Asquith]: “My God! this war is living History. Everything we are doing and saying is thrilling–it will be read by a thousand generations, think of that!! Why I would not be out of this glorious delicious war for anything the world could give me. I say, don’t repeat that I said the word ‘delicious’–you know what I mean.”

“The Challenge of War: August 1914-1916,” Churchill Centre http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=181

[Nitroadict]

I thought the Grasshopper from James & The Giant Peach had pretty classy delivery:

“You sir, are an ass!”

[IDigSluts_ky]

[Physiocrat]

Bump.

This was awesome thread and thought you noobs, and not so noobs, would like it.