For all friends of good English usage in this coarse age...
Just thought you might enjoy some of these glorious insults from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words. If you have seen them before, my apologies...



"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)

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
Groucho Marx

'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

'He has Van Gogh's ear for music.'
Billy Wilder

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

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

'A modest little person, with much to be modest about. '
Winston Churchill

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."

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography; also in Mark Twain in Eruption

The taxpayers are sending congressmen on expensive trips abroad.
It might be worth it except they keep coming back!
Will Rogers

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
Will Rogers

The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected [to Congress].
Will Rogers

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.
Will Rogers

"With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law, and every time they make a law it's a joke."
Will Rogers

Superb digest of cutting quotations.

One of my favorites, which as far as I know is attributable to a 19th century New York judge:

"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session."

Another:

"He gives pederasty a bad name."

-- Winston Churchill, during the interregnum, regarding a fellow member of parliament.

"His lack of intelligence was frightening"
MGySgt Webber

"He was as durable as cheese paper"
SSgt Fulgencio

"You can expect a seething, morally discriminating message back from me if you ever contact me again"
My ex wife

"It's going to be hard to transform him from a premadonna to a brazen fortress of heroism. He's got the spine of a wet noodle"
SSgt Fulgencio

Actually this is more of a threat, but
"I'm going to work over your car with a sledgehammer, have an angry mob flip it over and set it afire, have rude slogans spray painted on it right after I use it in a incredibly daring daylight bank robbery"
-Steve after I bought my GTO