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When Insults Had Class

  • Quotes

This is an oldie which has been travelling around the Internet for a while, but is worth preserving here. These glorious insults are from an era that valued cleverness with words; an era when the leaders of society didn’t need to use profanity or the middle finger to make their point.

He had delusions of adequacy

-Walter Kerr


He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire

-Winston Churchill


He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.

-William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)


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 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 has Van Gogh’s ear for music.

-Billy Wilder


I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But I’m afraid this wasn’t it.

-Groucho Marx

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