Witty Wishy

Diverse personalities - all joined by their share of wit. Some witty quotations from this aritcle:

The best often came from Winston Churchill. He had a style of saying things none of us can improve on. Consider this as a way of putting someone down: “He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” Or, better still: “A modest little person with much to be modest about.”

Equally pithy and apposite was Oscar Wilde. Of an acquaintance he did not regard highly, he said: “He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends.” Of himself, he’s alleged to have commented: “Falling in love with oneself is the start of a life long romance.” Of those he disliked: “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”

By and large, it’s the British who have this wonderful knack for tongue-in-cheek humour. George Bernard Shaw once sent Churchill two tickets for the opening night of a new play with a note which read: “For you and a friend — if you have one.” Churchill replied: “I can’t make the first night but I’ll be there for the second — if there is one.”

It may surprise you to discover that Americans can be equally clever with their wit. Amongst the best is Mark Twain. Consider this: “I didn’t attend the funeral but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” Or, “Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without an address on it?” But my favourite is this description of a friend by Forrest Tucker: “He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”

Now here are a few you could bandy about at a party or cast in the direction of those you want to snub. Believe it or not, they were dreamt up by politicians. Talleyrand, Napoleon’s foreign minister, once said of a woman: “In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yields easily.” Paul Keating, who was Prime Minister of Australia in the 1990s, said of an opponent: “He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”