#satire

He has a very nice face and style, really," said Mrs. Kenwigs. "He certainly has," added Miss Petowker. "There's something in his appearance quite--dear, dear, what's the word again?" "What word?" inquired Mr. Lillyvick. "Why--dear me, how stupid I am!" replied Miss Petowker, hesitating. "What do you call it when lords break off doorknockers, and beat policemen, and play at coaches with other people's money, and all that sort of thing?" "Aristocratic?" suggested the collector. "Ah! Aristocratic," replied Miss Petowker; "something very aristocratic about him, isn't there?" The gentlemen held their peace, and smiled at each other, as who should say, "Well! there's no accounting for tastes;" but the ladies resolved unanimously that Nicholas had an aristocratic air, and nobody caring to dispute the position, it was established triumphantly. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#satire #money

What you have not published, you can destroy. The word once sent forth can never be recalled. ↗

— Horace

#satire

Satire's nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth. ↗

— E.L. Doctorow

#bias #fairness #ridicule #satire #truth

Now, as I understand it, the bards were feared. They were respected, but more than that they were feared. If you were just some magician, if you'd pissed off some witch, then what's she gonna do, she's gonna put a curse on you, and what's gonna happen? Your hens are gonna lay funny, your milk's gonna go sour, maybe one of your kids is gonna get a hare-lip or something like that — no big deal. You piss off a bard, and forget about putting a curse on you, he might put a satire on you. And if he was a skilful bard, he puts a satire on you, it destroys you in the eyes of your community, it shows you up as ridiculous, lame, pathetic, worthless, in the eyes of your community, in the eyes of your family, in the eyes of your children, in the eyes of yourself, and if it's a particularly good bard, and he's written a particularly good satire, then three hundred years after you're dead, people are still gonna be laughing, at what a twat you were. ↗

— Alan Moore

#artists-way #bard #irony #modernity-is-a-sickness #musicians

Nothing can be more notorious than the calumnies and invectives with which the wisest measures and most virtuous characters of The United States have been pursued and traduced [By American Newspapers] ↗

— Thurgood Marshall

#humour #satire #satire

Cecily. This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade. Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#satire

An Ass put on a Lion's skin and went About the foreset with much merriment, Scaring the foolish beasts by brooks and rocks, Till at last he tried to scare the Fox. But Reynard, hearing from beneath the mane That Raucous voice so petulant and vain, Remarked. O' Ass, I too would run away, But that I know your old familiar bray'. That's just the way with asses, just the way. ↗

— Aesop

#satire #satire

He burst into the house and ate Grandma, an entirely valid course of action for a carnivore such as himself. ↗

— James Finn Garner

#humour #politically-correct #red-riding-hood #satire #wolf

The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#contradiction #doctrines #paradox #practice #rules

Perhaps,” murmured his lordship, “I yielded to a compassionate impulse.” “A what?” gasped his best friend. “Oh, did you think I never did so?” said his lordship, the satirical glint in his eyes extremely pronounced. “You wrong me! I do, sometimes—not frequently, of course, but every now and then! ↗

— Georgette Heyer

#satire