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Clever jabs

277 quotes from 161 people

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Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows, because our sun is setting.
Walter Savage Landor1775–1864Imaginary Conversations (1824-1829), “Andrew Marvel and Bishop Parker”
- Power
I have never yet done a man to death by torture, but by God, sir, you tempt me!
Robert E. Howard1906–1936“Red Shadows” (1928)
Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike;
One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.
Ben Jonson1572–1637Epigrams (1616), LXI: To Fool, or Knave
If in his study he hath so much care
To hang all old strange things, let his wife beware.
John Donne1572–1631Epigrams, “Antiquary”, in Poems (1633)
- Marriage
If I thought the Lord was speaking to me I’d check myself into Bellevue, and I think you should too.
Bill Maherborn 1956Larry King Live, 11 August 2005; in response to a called-in question if he would become a believer if the Lord spoke to him
- Anti-Religion
There’s reason good, that you good laws should make:
Men’s manners ne’er were viler, for your sake.
Ben Jonson1572–1637Epigrams (1616), XXIV: To the Parliament
- Laws
Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung fu film.
Werner Herzogborn 1942Herzog on Herzog (2002)
- Movies
I enjoyed talking to her, but thought nothing of her writing. I considered her “a beautiful little knitter”.
Edith Sitwell1887–1964Describing Virginia Woolf in a letter to Geoffrey Singleton (11 July 1955); John Lehmann and Derek Palmer, eds., Selected Letters (1970)
- Writing
The interpretations of Freud are more and more successful because they are among the myths accessible to modern man.
Mircea Eliade1907–1986No Souvenirs (1977) later retitled Journal II, 1957-1969 (1989), p. 117
I wouldn’t wear a tie-dyed tee-shirt unless it was dyed with the urine of Phil Collins and the blood of Jerry Garcia.
KCKurt Cobain1967–1994As quoted in Melody Maker (18 July 1992)
- Music
The elevation of Foucault to guru status by American and British academics is a tale that belongs to the history of cults.
Camille Pagliaborn 1947Sex, Art and American Culture: New Essays (1992), “Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf”, p. 174
People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.
Montesquieu1689–1755Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721), No. 46. (Usbek writing to Rhedi)
- Religion
Judges of elegance and taste consider themselves as benefactors to the human race, whilst they are really only the interrupters of their pleasure.
Jeremy Bentham1748–1832Théorie des peines et des récompenses (1811); translation by Richard Smith, The Rationale of Reward, J. & H. L. Hunt, London, 1825, Bk. 3, Ch. 1
- Art
My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope?
Galileo Galilei1564–1642Letter to Johannes Kepler (1610), as quoted in The Crime of Galileo (1955) by Giorgio De Santillana
- Science
Pascal proves nothing in favour of Religion, unless that a man of genius may be foolish on some subjects, and is but a child, when he is weak enough to listen to his prejudices.
Baron d'Holbach1723–1789Good Sense without God (Le Bon Sens, 1772), sect. 167
- Anti-Religion