These glorious insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words. There is an art to it.... Much better than spewing classless hurled slang cursewords... Jeff
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When Insults Had Class......
The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison." 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
"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 my personal favorite):
"What you are speaks so loud that i can't hear what you say"
- Emerson