Tag Archives: humor

Michael Korda on Hypocrisy and Ambition

Posted on January 5, 2024 | Leave a comment

“An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition.”

Michael Korda

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Book of Answers: Henry Fielding

Posted on January 5, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Whom did novelist Henry Fielding summon to court for the murder of the English language? Poet laureate Colley Cibber in 1740. Fielding issued the summons under the pseudonym ‘Captain Hercules Vinegar.’”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

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Plutarch at the Barber Shop

Posted on November 4, 2023 | Leave a comment

“A prating barber asked Archelaus how he would be trimmed. He answered, ‘In silence.’”

Plutarch

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Alexandre Dumas on Education

Posted on October 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

“How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.”

Alexandre Dumas fils

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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Comma Spice

Posted on October 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Comma Splice: Improper use of a comma, above all between clauses requiring either a conjunction or a full stop (semicolon, colon, or period). Also COMMA BLUNDER, COMMA FAULT.

‘Mr. Mudrick is rude, contentious, incorrigible comma spliced, headlong, raunchy, scornful and know-it-all.’ John Leonard, The New York Times.”

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

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Write it Right: Deliver

Posted on October 13, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Deliver. ‘He delivered an oration,’ or ‘delivered a lecture.’ Say, He made an oration or gave a lecture.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Georges Clemenceau on the Passion of the Functionary

Posted on October 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

“There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function.”

Georges Clemenceau

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Intoxication

Posted on October 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Intoxication, n. A spiritual condition that goeth before the next morning.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.

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Admiral Rickover on God and Bureaucracy

Posted on October 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

“If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you, but the bureaucracy won’t.”

Hyman Rickover

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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William Hazlitt on Hypocrites

Posted on September 1, 2023 | Leave a comment

“We are not hypocrites in our sleep.”

William Hazlitt

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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