Have you ever thought about the uncanny connection between fame and wit? The famous—or the notorious, and often it’s the same person—are frequently credited with a pleasing though perplexing sense of humour. Not of the ha-ha variety but more literary. They turn their phrases with such cleverness their aphorisms are remembered long after they are themselves forgotten. In fact, often it’s what they have said that is the cause of their fame.
With the help of several newspapers and of course the Internet, I have compiled a collection of witticisms that could be usefully purloined and passed on. I recommend them and if you use them they are bound to impress.
The best often come 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”.
Occasionally actors can drum up enough wit to say something memorable. Thus Robert Redford: “He has the attention span of a lightening bolt”. Or William Kerr, on a playwright who never cast him: “he had delusions of adequacy”.
Even under-graduates can score points with their repartee. The Union Societies at Cambridge and Oxford are full of delightful examples. One of my favourites is this gentle dig which I recommend to our politicians. We would say of a particularly frivolous opponent: “He’s a very well balanced man with a chip on both shoulders”. Or borrow from the good Rev. Spooner and call him a “shining wit”!
Ultimately, of course, one has to return to Oscar Wilde. The sheer pithyness and the incredible expanse of his wit is hard to beat. Just look at the sweep and twists of his random collection: “There’s only one thing in the world that is worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”; “I have nothing to declare except my genius”; “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it”; “Work is the curse of the drinking classes”.
Even incarcerated in Reading Jail, he said of his condition: “If this is the way Queen Victoria treats her convicts she doesn’t deserve to have any”. And of the rue whose suspiciously deliberate indiscretions got on his nerves: “I hope you have not been leading a double life—pretending to be wicked but being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy”
But of course, you can’t end without quoting Winston Churchill. On a certain occasion in the House, when a debate had reached almost its boiling point, a lady from the opposition stood up and said: “Mr. Churchill, believe me, if I were your wife, I would put poison in your tea”. Silence. The entire House was pin drop silent. Mr. Churchill stood up slowly and said: “My dear lady, if you were my wife, I would surely drink that tea”!!!
Again, in another instance, during a very heated debate in the British Parliament, Churchill lost his control, and shouted at the top of his voice: “Mr. Speaker, half the members of this house are fools”, referring to the opposition. The opposition was aghast, and demanded apology. Churchill thought for sometime and then said: “Mr. Speaker Sir, it was just a slip of my tongue. All I wanted to say was, half the members of this house are wise!!” The entire house stood up and clapped for 2 minutes…
With exactly seven days left before I formally join IIMA, I hope that I get the profs who are brilliant in their sense of humour… so that I could add a few more to this list…
No comments:
Post a Comment