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Clever jabs

277 quotes from 161 people

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An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
Dwight D. Eisenhower1890–1969
- Intelligence
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
He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.
George Eliot1819–1880Adam Bede (1859), Chapter 33
Mr. Aldous Huxley, who is perhaps one of those people who have to perpetrate thirty bad novels before producing a good one, has a certain natural — but little developed — aptitude for seriousness.
T. S. Eliot1888–1965“The Contemporary English Novelist”, La Nouvelle Revue française (1 May 1927)
- Writing
One becomes a critic when one cannot be an artist, just as a man becomes a stool pigeon when he cannot be a soldier.
Gustave Flaubert1821–1880Letters to Madame Louise Colet, 22 October 1846
- Art
Charles’s conversation was commonplace as a street pavement, and everyone’s ideas trooped through it in their everyday garb, without exciting emotion, laughter, or thought.
Gustave Flaubert1821–1880Madame Bovary (1857), Part I, Chapter SevenIn context
- Talking
A bore is a fellow who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.
Henry Ford1863–1947
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
It’s an abominable place. If there was an Old Testamental God, he would do his job and wipe the place out. The only bad thing is that some really good restaurants would go up as well.
Terry Gilliamborn 1940About Hollywood. As quoted in the New York Times article Terry Gilliam’s Feel-Good Endings (14 August 2005)
- Movies
I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass.
Barry Goldwater1909–1998Said in July 1981, on Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell’s opposition to Sandra Day O’Connor’s Supreme Court nomination
- Christianity
If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you.
Lindsey Graham1955–2026Washington Press Club Foundation Congressional Dinner (25 February 2016)
- Politics
You know how to make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to Hell.
Lindsey Graham1955–2026“Graham: Trump is a ‘race-baiting, xenophobic’ bigot (2015)” CNN (December 8, 2015)
- Politics
Cynicism is cheap⁠—you can buy it at any Monoprix store⁠—it’s built into all poor-quality goods.
Graham Greene1904–1991The Comedians (1966), Pt. 1, ch. 1, sct. 3
Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. It had no mother.
Germaine Greerborn 1939The Female Eunuch (1970), “The Psychological Sell”
It’s easy to identify people who can’t count to ten. They’re in front of you in the supermarket express lane.
MGM. Grundler