Gems of the fine but now vanishing art of persiflage
Once upon a time men and women sharpened their wits rather than their swords as a defense against friend and foe. This was the fine art of lighthearted, chit-chatty mockery or frivolous bantering talk known as persiflage. Below is a vintage collection of the art form that’s now vanishing from the public sphere, displaced by cuss words or outright profanity in movies, the mass media, and the social media.
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“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”—Albert Einstein
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“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”—Winston Churchill
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“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”—Mark Twain
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“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”—Clarence Darrow
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“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”—Abraham Lincoln
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“He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends.”—Oscar Wilde
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“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”—Moses Hadas
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“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.”—Winston Churchill
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“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”—John Bright
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“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”—Irvin S. Cobb
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“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.”—Samuel Johnson
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“He had delusions of adequacy.”—Walter Kerr
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“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”—Jack E. Leonard
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George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill: “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play. Bring a friend . . . if you have one.”
Winston Churchill, in response: “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second . . . if there is one.”
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William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway): “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner): “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
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“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”—Thomas Brackett Reed
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“He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.”—James Reston (about Richard Nixon)
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“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.”—Charles, Count Talleyrand
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“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”—Mark Twain
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“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts...for support rather than illumination.”—Andrew Lang
—From “Persiflage: Intelligent Insults” in the alphaDictionary.com website (http://www.alphadictionary.com/fun/when_insults_had_class.html)