Irony Quotes - Page 23

• The Book of History is the Bible of Irony.

  George Saintsbury

  Book

  George Saintsbury, Oliver Elton, Adam Blyth Webster (1945). “George Saintsbury: The Memorial Volume : a New Collection of His Essays and Papers”

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• It is one of history's most mocking ironies that the German customs union, which set out to dominate Europe and conquer Britain in the form of Bismarckian or Hitlerian military force, has at last vanquished the victor by drawing Britain into a Zollverein which comprises Western Europe and aspires to comprise the Mediterranean as well. If the ghosts of the Hohenzollerns come back to haunt this planet, they must find a lot to laugh at.

  Enoch Powell

  Military, Europe, Drawing

  "Enoch Powell on 1992". Book by Enoch Powell, p. 93. Speech in Grimsby, 1989.

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• The irony of primary parent laws is that on the one hand feminists were arguing for women's equal rights to jointly-created career assets that emanated from the male financial womb, but arguing against men's equal rights to jointly-created children that emanated from the woman's child-bearing womb.

  Warren Farrell

  Children, Men, Hands

  "Father and Child Reunion". Book by Warren Farrell, 2001.

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• Irony: While we increasingly hold people more responsible if they drink and drive, we hold women less responsible if they drink and have sex.

  Warren Farrell

  Sex, People, Drink

  "The Myth of Male Power". Book by Warren Farrell, 1993.

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• Life compulsively dangled the possibility of life. Life, the dramatist on speed. Life, that couldn't stop with its foreshadows and ironies and symbols and clues, its wretched jokes and false endings and twists. Life with its hopeless addiction to plot.

  Glen Duncan

  Life, Addiction, Twists

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• I need an irony punctuation mark for the clueless.

  Gene Weingarten

  Clueless, Punctuation Marks, Needs

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• God's irony, that in order to fight and defeat the threat of terrorism, we shall have to be clear about the principle of justice that allows us to understand what is evil in terrorism. And that principle of justice is the claim of justice that is inherent in every innocent human life. But if that claim was there in the Twin Towers, if it was there on the airplanes that those terrorists attacked, you explain to me why it is not there in the womb!

  Alan Keyes

  Airplane, Fighting, Order

  Alan Keyes' Speech at Thanksgiving Point, Lehi, Utah, www.keyesarchives.com. September 24, 2002.

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• I love irony in pictures. There's one photograph from Vietnam by Philip Jones Griffiths that shows a very large GI having his pocket picked by a tiny Vietnamese woman. It told the whole story of the clash of two cultures and how the invader could never win.

  John Pilger

  Winning, Two, Pockets

  "This much I know". Interview with Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. November 13, 2005.

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• Is it not a rather fantastic historical irony that the torture techniques that the North Vietnamese used against McCain that forced him to offer a videotaped false confession are now the techniques the Bush administration is using to gain "intelligence" about terror networks. How is it possible to know that everything John McCain once said on videotape for the enemy was false, because it was coerced, and yet assert that everything we torture out of terror suspects using exactly the same techniques is true?

  Andrew Sullivan

  Historical, Enemy, Gains

  "Bush, McCain, Torture". "The Daily Dish", www.theatlantic.com. July 02, 2008.

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• It is the profoundest of cosmic ironies. The divine power, our true spiritual essence, does not achieve perfection until it hits the 'rock' bottom of the cosmos - the dense and crude earth. It remains imperfect until the moment of entombment for the simple reason that until that dark nadir is reached the experiential adventure of existence remains incomplete, and Self is not yet endowed with the entire spectrum of the light of consciousness - from spirit to matter - from the highest high to the lowest low.

  Lon Milo DuQuette

  Spiritual, Adventure, Dark

  Jason Augustus Newcomb, Lon Milo Duquette (2004). “The New Hermetics: 21st Century Magick for Illumination and Power”, p.14, Weiser Books

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• Talk about impersonating an identity, about locking into a role, about irony; I went to cover the war and the war covered me; an old story, unless of course you've never heard it.

  Michael Herr

  War, Identity, Roles

  Michael Herr (2011). “Dispatches”, p.17, Vintage

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• The next step will be for the colonists on Mars to throw off the hand of the United States. There will be this wonderful historical irony. When the people on Mars write a declaration of independence saying, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident...', the US will be rather pissed off.

  Eric Idle

  Writing, Self, Hands

  "The Wired Diaries 2000". www.wired.com. January 01, 2000.

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• The arrival of the Barbary pirates radically changed English attitudes. Instead of patriotic pirates plundering foreign cargoes and bringing them homes to enrich their countrymen, the 'Turks' were in the usual Mediterranean business of slave-raiding - and now the English were the victims. The West Country men suffered the heaviest, and did not appreciate the irony. The Newfoundland fishery, dominated by Devon ports, lost at least 20 ships in 1611 alone.

  Nicholas Rodger

  Country, Attitude, Home

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• Nevertheless we have this curious spectacle: daily the trained parrot in the pulpit gravely delivers himself of these ironies, which he has acquired at second-hand and adopted without examination, to a trained congregation which accepts them without examination, and neither the speaker nor the hearer laughs at himself. It does seem as if we ought to be humble when we are at a bench-show, and not put on airs of intellectual superiority there.

  Mark Twain

  Humble, Air, Hands

  Mark Twain, John S. Tuckey (1972). “Mark Twain's Fables of Man”, p.115, Univ of California Press

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• When I was young I had no means or time, and now I have the means and time, I have no youth.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Mean, Youth, Young

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1994). “A Lantern in Her Hand”, p.241, U of Nebraska Press

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• What would we do without irony? Check out your own daily reliance on it, the foul-weather friend who's there for you when nothing else is.

  Robin Morgan

  Weather, Checks, Foul

  Robin Morgan (2014). “Saturday's Child: A Memoir”, p.334, Open Road Media

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• Never joke with the press. Irony does not translate into newsprint.

  Erica Jong

  Doe, Journalism, Translate

  Erica Jong (2013). “Shylock's Daughter: A Novel of Love in Venice”, p.27, Open Road Media

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• Wit is artificial; humor is natural. Wit is accidental; humor is inevitable. Wit is born of conscious effort; humor, of the allotted ironies of fate. Wit can be expressed only in language; humor can be developed sufficiently in situation.

  Agnes Repplier

  Humor, Fate, Effort

  Agnes Repplier (1893). “Essays in Idleness”, Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin

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• irony is an indispensable ingredient of the critical vision; it is the safest antidote to sentimental decay.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Vision, Decay, Ingredients

  Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (1938). “Works”

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• It would appear, from the best examples, that the proper way of beginning a preface to one's work is with a humble apology for having written at all.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Humble, Apology, Example

  Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (1938). “Works”

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• Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty and her wit: "an unusual combination," in the deliberate syllables of one of the writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when speaking of her.

  George Meredith

  Book, Becoming, Diaries

  George Meredith (1897). “Diana of the Crossways: A Novel”, p.51, Wayne State University Press

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• One can never be too rich or too thin' is an aphorism attributed to the Duchess of Windsor. Being both rich and thin is a difficult enterprise, indeed almost unprecedented as an ideal. Into the paradoxical gap between the capacity to spend money and the need to eat less steps a brilliant solution: 'light' food. In buying 'light' food we can pay more for what costs less to produce in the first place.

  Margaret Visser

  Light, Needs, Cost

  Margaret Visser (2010). “Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Mea”, p.109, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Most people think leadership is about being in charge. Most people think leadership is about having all the answers and being the most intelligent person or the most qualified person in the room. The irony is that it is the complete opposite. Leadership is about empowering others to achieve things they did not think possible. Leadership is about pointing in the direction, articulating a vision of the world that does not yet exist. Then asking help from others to insure that vision happens.

  Simon Sinek

  Intelligent, Thinking, Opposites

  "Why Leaders Should Always Eat Last – Simon Sinek Interview". Interview With Dan Schawbel, www.quickbase.com. February 19, 2014.

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• The irony is that the best thing we can do is, well one option, is to quit job we don't like. You don't always have to quit, and quite frankly, option two is to try to help others solve the problem that you are struggling with.

  Simon Sinek

  Jobs, Struggle, Helping Others

  "Why Leaders Should Always Eat Last – Simon Sinek Interview". Interview With Dan Schawbel, www.quickbase.com. February 19, 2014.

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• I wonder if Bettie Page original gay cult had something to do with the ironies inherent in her image, as well as her innate fabulousness as an image.

  Mary Harron

  Gay, Pages, Wonder

  Source: susiebright.blogs.com

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