When Insults had class!

These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.

1) The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, 'If you were my husband I'd give you poison,' and he said, 'If you were my wife, I'd drink it.'

2) 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.'

3) 'He had delusions of adequacy.' - Walter Kerr

4) 'He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.' - Winston Churchill

5) 'A modest little person, with much to be modest about.' - Winston Churchill

6) 'I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.'- Clarence Darrow

7) 'He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.' - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

8) 'Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?' - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

9) 'Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.' - Moses Hadas

10) 'He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.' - Abraham Lincoln

11) 'I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.' - Mark Twain

12) 'He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.' - Oscar Wilde

13) '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

14) 'Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one.' - Winston Churchill, in response.

15) 'I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here.' - Stephen Bishop

16) 'He is a self-made man and worships his creator.' - John Bright

17) 'I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.' - Irvin S. Cobb

18) 'He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.' - Samuel Johnson

19) 'He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.' - Paul Keating

20) 'There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.' Jack E. Leonard

21) 'He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.' - Robert Redford

22) 'They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.' - Thomas Brackett Reed

23) 'In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.' - Charles, Count Talleyrand

24) 'He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.' - Forrest Tucker

25) 'Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?' - Mark Twain

26) 'His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.' - Mae West

27) 'Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.' - Oscar Wilde

28) 'He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination.' - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

29) 'He has Van Gogh's ear for music.' - Billy Wilder

30) 'I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.' - Groucho Marx