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Clever jabs

277 quotes from 161 people

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The modern clergyman has acquired in his study of the science which I believe is called exegesis an astonishing facility for explaining things away.
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 1, p. 8
- Religion
Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths to their private parts.
Vladimir Nabokov1899–1977Strong Opinions (1973), p. 66 (On the ideas of Sigmund Freud)
The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people’s democracy. It’s the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004Remarks at Human Rights Day event (10 December 1986)
- Democracy
Personal columnists … are jackals and no jackal has been known to live on grass once he had learned about meat — no matter who killed the meat for him.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961A Letter from Cuba (1934)
- Journalism
Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I (1743)
- Writing
It is obvious that “obscenity” is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means “anything that shocks the magistrate.”
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 10: Recrudescence of Puritanism
- Laws
Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I (28 July 1763) p. 128
- Intelligence
The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
- Politics
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.
EDEdsger W. Dijkstra1930–2002How do we tell truths that might hurt? (1975)
- Computers
Empty-brained triflers who have never tried to think, who take their creed as they take their fashions, speak of atheism as the outcome of foul life and vicious desires.
Annie Besant1847–1933Annie Besant: An Autobiography, p. 89
- Atheism
I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.
Steve Jobs1955–2011On Bill Gates as quoted in “Creating Jobs” in The New York Times (12 January 1997)
I’m getting sick and tired of people saying that this movement has been infiltrated by Communists. There are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida.
Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968Interview in Playboy (January 1965)
- Politics
I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled “Science Fiction” … and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.
Kurt Vonnegut1922–2007“Science Fiction”; originally published in The New York Times Book Review, 5 September 1965
- Writing
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
EDEdsger W. Dijkstra1930–2002How do we tell truths that might hurt? (1975)
- Computers
There used to be a time when this country’s president could have delivered the same New Year’s Address he had given a year before, and nobody would have noticed.
Fortunately, that time has passed.
Václav Havel1936–2011New Year’s Address to the Nation (1991)
- Presidency