Classy Insults

WHEN INSULTS HAD CLASS

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

- Winston Churchill

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."

- Moses Hadas

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."

- Winston Churchill

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."

- Groucho Marx

"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

"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

"He had delusions of adequacy."

- Walter Kerr

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."

- Jack E. Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt."

- Robert Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge. "

- Thomas Brackett Reed

"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them."

- James Reston

"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

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."

- Billy Wilder