When Insults Had Class... (Credit Keri Shields)

> These glorious insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to four-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 I'm afraid this wasn't it."
> -Groucho Marx