When Insults Had Class
From my email today. I thought these were pretty good.
There was a time when words were used beautifully. These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language was boiled down to four-letter words!
The exchange between Churchill and Lady Astor: She said, 'If you were my husband, I'd give you poison,' and he said, 'If you were my wife, I'd take it.'
Gladstone, a member of Parliament, to Benjamin Disraeli: 'Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease .''That depends, sir,' said Disraeli, 'On 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
'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
'He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support, rather than illumination.' - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
'Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.'- Oscar Wild
'He has Van Gogh's ear for music.'- Billy Wilder
'I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.' - Groucho Marx