Quotes by Satirists - Page 3

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.
Samuel Butler
Pale death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
Horace
Men would be angels angels would be gods.
Alexander Pope
In Rome you long for the country. In the country you praise to the skies the distant town.
Horace
No one is content with his own lot.
Horace
Order is Heaven's first law.
Alexander Pope
To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Ambrose Bierce
What runs through a person like water through a sieve.
Samuel Butler
It is too bad if you have to do everything upon reflection and can't do anything from early habit.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
He possesses dominion over himself and is happy who can every day say "I have lived." Tomorrow the heavenly Father may either involve the world in dark clouds or cheer it with clear sunshine he will not however render ineffectual the things which have already taken place.
Horace
Live mindful of how brief your life is.
Horace
Gladly accept the gifts of the present hour.
Horace
The lower classes of men though they do not think it worthwhile to record what they perceive nevertheless perceive everything that is worth noting the difference between them and a man of learning often consists in nothing more than the latter's facility for expression.
G. C. Lichtenberg
An obstinate man does not hold opinions but they hold him.
Alexander Pope
Blessed be he who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed.
Alexander Pope
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting by the world forgot.
Alexander Pope
Thus let me live unseen unknown Thus unlamented let me die Steal from the world and not a stone Tell where I lie.
Alexander Pope
When your neighbor's house is afire your own property is at stake.
Horace
All gardening is landscape painting.
Alexander Pope
Light quirks of music broken and uneven Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n.
Alexander Pope
The musician who always plays on the same string is laughed at.
Horace
Light quirks of music broken and uneven make the soul dance upon a jig of heaven.
Alexander Pope
No matter how ill we may be nor how low we may have fallen we should not change identity with any other person.
Samuel Butler
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
Jonathan Swift
Revenge is sweeter than life itself. So think fools.
Juvenal
Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time.
Malcolm Muggeridge
Dismiss the old horse in good time lest he fail in the lists and the spectators laugh.
Horace
Apologize v: to lay the foundation for a future offence.
Ambrose Bierce
Infidel n: in New York one who does not believe in the Christian religion in Constantinople one who does.
Ambrose Bierce
Heathen n. A beknighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.
Ambrose Bierce
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Alexander Pope
People are lucky and unlucky ... according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
Samuel Butler
We set up harsh and unkind rules against ourselves. No one is born without faults. That man is best who has fewest.
Horace
When I am reading a book whether wise or silly it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.
Jonathan Swift
I know Sir John will go though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.
Jonathan Swift
It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years.
Tom Lehrer
One man meets an infamous punishment for that crime which confers a diadem upon another.
Juvenal
Many individuals have like uncut diamonds shining qualities beneath a rough exterior.
Juvenal
He that would pun would pick a pocket.
Alexander Pope
Promise and pie-crust are made to be broken.
Jonathan Swift
All progress is based upon the universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
Samuel Butler
In pride in reas'ning pride our error lies All quit their sphere and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes Men would be angels angels would be gods.
Alexander Pope
If I am right Thy grace impart Still in the right to stay If I am wrong O teach my heart To find that better way!
Alexander Pope
I always love to begin a journey on Sundays because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land or by water.
Jonathan Swift
We should pray for a sane mind in a sound body.
Juvenal
Pray v: to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
Commendation n: the tribute that we pay to achievements that resemble but do not equal our own.
Ambrose Bierce
He who gladly does without the praise of the crowd will not miss the opportunity of becoming his own fan.
Karl Kraus
The advantage of doing one's praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
Samuel Butler
Some praise at morning what they blame at night.
Alexander Pope
Tis an old maxim in the schools That flattery's the food of fools - Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.
Jonathan Swift
Responsibility n: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God Fate Fortune Luck or one's neighbour. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Ambrose Bierce
Hunger is insolent and will be fed.
Alexander Pope
Possession they say is eleven points of the law.
Jonathan Swift
All seems infected that the infected spy as all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.
Alexander Pope
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
John Arbuthnot
Party-spirit . . . which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.
Alexander Pope
The man is either mad or he is making verses.
Horace
Let your poem be kept nine years.
Horace
Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Ambrose Bierce