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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)
- Clever Jabs
- 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
- Clever Jabs
- Laws
Heaven, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
- Talking
Clarionet, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet⁠—two clarionets.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
- Music
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
- Clever Jabs
- Intelligence
Whatever may be said in favour of the Victorians, it is pretty generally admitted that few of them were to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks.
P. G. Wodehouse1881–1975Summer Moonshine (1938)
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)
- Clever Jabs
- 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)
- Clever Jabs
- 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
- Clever Jabs
Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961In The Toronto Star Weekly (4 March 1922)
Generous, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
- Charity
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)
- Clever Jabs
Psychiatry is becoming too popular. Everybody talks of complexes and neuroses and psychoses and compulsions and whatnot. One man’s guilt complex is another man’s good night’s sleep.
Isaac Asimov1920–1992“Breeds There a Man…?” (p. 419)
Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic’s eyes to improve his vision.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
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)
- Clever Jabs
- Politics