FAMOUS INSULTS, RETORTS, AND PUT-DOWNS!

Part II

Written by Rick Archer
April 2018
 

 

James McNeill Whistler Vs. Oscar Wilde

 Whistler reply after Wilde made a observation.
 

Edna Ferber Vs. Noel Coward
Coward was remarking upon the fact that Ferber
was wearing a tailored suit. 

WINSTON CHURCHILL

Winston Churchill was a great political orator. He left a huge legacy of interesting quotes.  In addition, he was considered to possess the sharpest tongue in the history of politics.
 

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last.


The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.


We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.


A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.


A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.


Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened.


If you are going to go through hell, keep going.


It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.


You have enemies?  Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.


If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.


You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.


History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.


The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.


I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.


The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.


A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.


To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.


Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.


Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

 

Wife of prominent politician to Churchill (with disdain):
Mr. Churchill, you are drunk again!

Churchill:
Yes, madam, and you are ugly.  But in the morning, I will be sober, and you will still be ugly.
...........

George Bernard Shaw (to Winston Churchill):
Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend - if you have one.

Churchill:  Impossible to be present for the first performance.  Will attend the second - if there is one.
...........

On Labour leader and Winston's successor as Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, Churchill had much to say.

"A sheep in sheep's clothing"

"He is a modest man who has a good deal to be modest about."

"An empty taxi arrived at 10 Downing Street and when the door was opened Attlee got out."

Winston Churchill Vs. a Member Of Parliament

 Winston Churchill Vs. Lady Astor

On the deeply religious, teetotal, austere and clean living socialist Chancellor Stafford Cripps, after being told of Cripps's decision to give up smoking:

Henry Clay Vs. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster
After seeing a pack of mules walk by. 

History's Most Famous Insults
 

"Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend." - Samuel Johnson


"A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults."- Louis Nizer (1902 - 1994) English lawyer


"Fine words! I wonder where you stole them." - Jonathon Swift


"What's on your mind? If you'll forgive the overstatement." -Fred Allen


"You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner." - Aristophanes


"The Gods too are fond of a joke." - Aristotle


"She was a large woman who seemed not so much dressed as upholstered." - James Matthew Barrie


"Why are we honoring this man? Have we run out of human beings?"- Milton Berle


"I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop


"He is a self-made man & worships his creator." - John Bright


"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices Iadmire." - Winston Churchill


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


"Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason." - WinstonChurchill


"I may be drunk madame, but in the morning I will be sober, and you will be just as ugly." - Winston Churchill (when asked if he was drunk)


"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb


"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow


"She has been kissed as often as a police-court Bible, and bymuch the same class of people." - Robertson Davies


"He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea and that was wrong." - Benjamin Disraeli


"He was one of the nicest old ladies I ever met." - William Faulkner


"He has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered his soul." - David Lloyd George


"He has every attribute of a dog except loyalty." - Thomas P.Gore


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


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


"Nature not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write." - A.E. Housman


"His ears made him look like a taxi cab with both doors open."- Howard Hughes (about Clark Gable)


"God was bored by him." - Victor Hugo


"He's a nice guy, but he played too much football with his helmet off." - Lyndon Baines Johnson (about Gerald Ford)


"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


"Her only flair is in her nostrils." - Pauline Kael


"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr


"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."- Jack E. Leonard

"I wish I'd known you when you were alive." - Leonard Louis Levinson


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


"His speeches left the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea." - William McAdoo (about Warren Harding)


"You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it." - Groucho Marx


"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception."- Groucho Marx


"From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it." -Groucho Marx


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


"Don't be humble...you're not that great." - Golda Meir


"He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death." - H. H. Munro


"It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt." - Thomas Paine (about John Adams)


"A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead." - Alexander Pope


"A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest." - Alexanger Pope


"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 inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them." - James Reston (about Richard Nixon)


"He has no more backbone than a chocolate eclair."- Theodore Roosevelt


"A little emasculated mass of inanity." - Theodore Roosevelt (about Henry James)


"You're a good example of why some animals eat their young."- Jim Samuels


"The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation, but not the power of speech." - George Bernard Shaw


"A woman whose face looked as if it had been made of sugar and someone had licked it." - George Bernard Shaw


"Gee, what a terrific party. Later on we'll get some fluid and embalm each other." - Neil Simon


"I regard you with an indifference bordering on aversion."- Robert Louis Stevenson


"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand


"He was as great as a man can be without morality."- Alexis de Tocqueville


"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker


"His ignorance covers the world like a blanket, and there's scarcely a hole in it anywhere." - Mark Twain


"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain


"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain


"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."- Oscar Wilde


"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." -Oscar Wilde


"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

Thomas Reed Vs. Henry Clay

Pierre Trudeau Vs. Richard Nixon
Upon hearing that Nixon had called him an asshole.

Calvin Coolidge Vs. An Opera Singer 

Oscar Wilde Vs. Lewis Morris
Morris had just been passed over for the Poet Laureateship.

Miriam Hopkins Vs. An Anonymous Singer
 

Reverend Edward Everett Hale Vs. The U.S. Senate
When asked if he prayed for the Senators.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Vs. An Admirer

Alcibiades Vs. Pericles

Groucho Marx Vs. A Contestant on "You Bet Your Life"
After the contestant revealed he was a father of 10.
 

NY Mayor Ed Koch Vs. Andrew Kirtzman
After the reporter insisted on pressing a point about an
inconsistent statement Koch had made.

Senator Fritz Hollings Vs. Henry McMastor
When challenged by his Republican opponent during a televised debate to take a drug test.

Abraham Lincoln Vs. Stephen Douglas
After Douglas called him "two-faced" during a debate:

Rick Archer's Three Favorites from above:

George Bernard Shaw (to Winston Churchill):
Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend - if you have one.

Churchill:  Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second - if there is one.
...........
 

Anonymous Singer:  You know, my dear, I insured my voice for fifty thousand dollars.

Miriam Hopkins: That's wonderful. And what did you do with the money?
.........

A young man began a correspondence with Mozart, and the following was said:

Q: "Herr Mozart, I am thinking of writing symphonies. Can you give me any suggestions as to how to get started."
A: "A symphony is a very complex musical form, perhaps you should begin with some simple lieder and work your way up to a symphony."
Q: "But Herr Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were 8 years old."
A: "True, but I never asked anybody how."
........

 

HONORABLE MENTION: 

William Faulkner when asked about Ernest Hemingway:

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

Dorothy Parker to Norman Mailer after publishers had convinced Mailer to replace the word with a euphemism, 'fug,' in his 1948 book, "The Naked and the Dead.”

“So, you're the man who can't spell 'fuck.'"
...........

 

Rick's Note: So which ones do we agree on?  Which ones did I miss on that you think are wonderful?

Let me know which ones you liked the best.  And if you have some for me to include, send them to me!

Thank you for reading!

Rick Archer
rick@ssqq.com