Curmudgeons and gadflies

It was kind of you to think of sending me a copy of your new book. It would have been kinder still to think again and abandon that project.

Max Beerbohm, How Shall I Word It?

Lady Astor: "If I were your wife, I would put poison in your coffee."
Winston Churchill: "If you were my wife, I would drink it."

He had no principles and was delightful company.

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

Well enough for old folks to rise early — they have done so many mean things all their lives, they can't sleep anyhow.

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Søren Kierkegaard

This is the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he is profoundly ignorant.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book — and does.

Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

George Bernard Shaw

I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.

George Bernard Shaw

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

George Bernard Shaw

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.

George Bernard Shaw

She had lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

George Bernard Shaw

I don't believe in morality. I am a disciple of Bernard Shaw.

George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor's Dilemma, 1911

When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.

Oscar Wilde

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