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These outstanding insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.
• A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
"That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
• "He had delusions of adequacy."
- Walter Kerr
•"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
- Winston Churchill
• "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
- Clarence Darrow
• "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
• "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
- Moses Hadas
• "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
- Mark Twain
• "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends...”
- Oscar Wilde
• "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one."
- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one."
- Winston Churchill, in response.
• "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."
- Stephen Bishop
• "He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
- John Bright
• "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb
• "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."
- Samuel Johnson
• "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
- Paul Keating
• "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
- Charles, Count Talleyrand
• "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."
- Forrest Tucker
• "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
- Mark Twain
• "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
- Mae West
• "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde
• "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination."
- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
· "He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
- Billy Wilder
• "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx.
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