Clever jabs
277 quotes from 161 people
Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?
Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Third Act, spoken by Lady BracknellIn contextCocaine is God’s way of telling someone that they’re too rich.
I’d always thought her half-baked, but now I think they didn’t even put her in the oven.
P. G. Wodehouse1881–1975Jeeves in the Offing (1960)
Gene Wolfe1931–2019Guest of Honor speech at Aussiecon Two (August 1985), as published in Castle of Days (1992)
Lee Kuan Yew1923–2015Responding to a BBC reporter who suggested that Singapore’s draconian laws (including the ban on chewing gum) could stifle the people’s creativity (2000).
