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Clever jabs

277 quotes from 161 people

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It’s traumatizing for me to come to Washington during a Republican administration because I don’t have any Republican clothes.
Sharon Stoneborn 1958The Washington Post (June 20, 2001)
- Politics
It is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists.
Leo Strauss1899–1973“What Is Liberal Education?”, in Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968), p. 7
- Philosophy
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Letter to Miss Vanhomrigh (August 12, 1720)
- Money
You have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag, Chapter VIIn context
- Laws
- Politics
I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag, Chapter VIIn context
There was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms, Chapter VIn context
- Laws
- Truth & Lies
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745A Modest Proposal (1729)In context
- Comedy
Social science means inventing a certain brand of human we can understand.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 95
- Science
Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 4
- Education
- Knowledge
To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week’s newspapers.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 21
- Journalism
Yes, if a man’s character is to be abused, say what you will, there’s nobody like a relation to do the business.
William Makepeace Thackeray1811–1863Vanity Fair (1848), Chapter XIXIn context
- Family
The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.
Hunter S. Thompson1937–2005
- Music
He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time.
Hunter S. Thompson1937–2005He Was A Crook (1994)
I have in this War a burning private grudge — which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler.
J. R. R. Tolkien1892–1973The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981), No. 45: To his son Michael (9 June 1941)
- War & Peace
I’ve been called worse things by better people.
Pierre Trudeau1919–2000When told that President Richard Nixon had called him an “asshole” (1971), as quoted in Absurdities, Scandals & Stupidities in Politics (2006)