To see him fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all the horror of seeing a Sevres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee. Evelyn Waugh, re Stephen Spender
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King. Percy Bysshe Shelley, re George III
A period of silence on your part would be welcome. Clement Attlee, letter to Harold Laski 20th August 1945
What with deafness, ignorance of French, and Bismarck’s extraordinary mode of speech, Beaconsfield has the dimmest idea of what is going on – understands everything crossways – and imagines a perpetual conspiracy. Lord Salisbury, letter 23rd June 1878
Mr Coolidge’s genius for inactivity is developed to a very high point. It is far from being an indolent activity. It is a grim, determined, alert inactivity which keeps Mr Coolidge occupied constantly. Nobody has ever worked harder at inactivity, with such force of character, with such unremitting attention to detail, with such conscientious devotion to the task. Walter Lippmann, Men of Destiny, 1927
He revolts me. Alain Prost, re Ayrton Senna, Japanese Grand Prix 1990
When the lorry goes over that fellow, I knew he couldn’t be crushed: and I was spending my time trying to work out how they did it. They make me angry. I think it’s all wrong. You know, they should be crucified by the Magic Circle. They will do a wonderful trick and then say, This is how it’s done. They’re mad. Well stuff you, mate. Nicholas Parsons, panel show host & amateur magician, re Penn & Teller
General de Gaulle is a soldier, certainly a patriot and devoted to his country, but on the other hand he is also a politician, and a sectarian, and I believe in him he has all the attributes of a dictator. Franklin D Roosevelt
That woman speaks eight languages, and can’t say no in any of them. Dorothy Parker, While Rome Burns
How do they know? Dorothy Parker, on being told of death of Calvin Coolidge
She ran the whole gamut of the emotions from A to B. Dorothy Parker, re Audrey Hepburn’s acting in play
As for Mr Wedderburne, there is something about him, which even treachery cannot trust. Junius, cited Public Advertiser 22nd June 1771
He has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful. Sydney Smith, re Thomas Macauley
What time he can spare from the adornment of his person he devotes to the neglect of his duties. William Hepworth Thompson, re Sir Richard Jebb
A Republican who took money from the KKK. Sharpe James, Mayor of Newark, re Cory Booker
Hard by a filthy Bason stands,
Fowl’d with the Souring of her Hands;
The Bason takes whatever comes
The Scrapings of her Teeth and Gums,
A nasty Compound of all Hues,
For her she spits, and her she spues.
But on! It turn’d poor Strephon’s Bowels,
When he beheld and smelt the Towels,
Begumm’d, bematter’d and beslim’d
With Dirt, and Sweat, and Ear-Wax grim’d ... Jonathan Swift v Lady Montague
cf.
What if your verses have not sold?
Must I therefore return your gold?
Perhaps you have no better luck in
The knack of rhyming than of fucking ... Lady Montague
I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal-food-trough-wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries. Monty Python and the Holy Grail 1974 starring Graham Chapman & John Cleese & Eric Idle & Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones & Michael Palin & Carol Cleveland & John Young et al, director Gilliam & Jones, man atop castle
I was haunted by mental decay such as I saw creeping over Ramsay MacDonald. A gradual dimming of the lights. Harold Nicolson, diary 28th April 1947
For seventeen years, he did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps. Harold Nicolson, re George V
To be a good diarist one must have a little snouty, sneaky mind. Harold Nicolson, re Samuel Pepys
This dull product of a scoffer’s pen. William Wordsworth, re Voltaire’s Candide
I never lik’d thy talk, thy offer less. John Milton, Paradise Regain’d, Book IV, Jesus to Satan on being tempted after forty-day fast
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilisation. Sigmund Freud
Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig. William Shakespeare, II Henry IV II iv 249
You hunt counter. William Shakespeare, Henry IV II, Globe Theatre, Sky Arts 2012
I’ll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man’s good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me his natural brother. William Shakespeare, As You Like It I i 133-136, Oliver
Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kinless villain! William Shakespeare, Hamlet II ii 616
A slipper and subtle knave, a finder of occasion, that has an eye can stamp and counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never present itself, a devilish knave! William Shakespeare, Othello II i @382, Iago
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face. William Shakespeare, The History of King Lear IV ii 30-31, Albany
Nancy Astor: If I were your wife, I’d put poison in your coffee.
Churchill: If you were my wife, I’d drink it. apocryphal
Nancy Astor: Sir, you’re drunk.
Winston Churchill: Madam, you’re ugly, but in the morning I shall be sober. apocryphal
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. Winston Churchill, re Stafford Cripps
A modest person with much to be modest about. Winston Churchill, re Attlee
It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor. Winston Churchill, 1931
I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend. If you have one. George Bernard Shaw, re Winston Churchill, apocryphal
cf.
Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one. Winston Churchill to George Bernard Shaw
He is one of those orators of whom it was well said, Before they get up, they do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking, they do not know what they are saying; and when they have sat down, they do not know what they have said. Winston Churchill, re Lord Charles Beresford
I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see was the one described as the Boneless Wonder. My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralizing for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50 years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench. Winston Churchill, re Ramsay MacDonald
The candle in that great turnip has gone out. Winston Churchill, re Stanley Baldwin