Satire Quotes

• Satire is moral outrage transformed into comic art.

  Philip Roth

  Art, Humor, Moral

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• You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.

  Art Buchwald

  Love, Life, Relationship

  The New York Times Book Review Interview in 1985. Quoted in "Pundits, Poets, and Wits: An Omnibus of American Newspaper Columns‎" by Karl Ernest Meyer, p. 308, 1990.

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• Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.

  Molly Ivins

  Powerful, Weapons, Powerless

  The Mouth of Texas", People Weekly, December 9, 1991.

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• Satire should, like a polished razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  Razors, Should, Polished

  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “Verses Addressed To The Imitator Of The First Satire Of The Second Book Of Horace”

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• If satire is to be effective, the audience must be aware of the thing satirized.

  Gore Vidal

  Audience, Ifs

  Gore Vidal (1957). “Visit to a Small Planet: A Comedy Akin to a Vaudeville”, Boston ; Toronto : Little Brown

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• Satire is a composition of salt and mercury; and it depends upon the different mixture and preparation of those ingredients, that it comes out a noble medicine, or a rank poison.

  Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey

  Science, Differences, Medicine

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• Satire must always accompany any free society. It is an absolute necessity. Even in the most repressive medieval kingdoms, they understood the need for the court jester, the one soul allowed to tell the truth through laughter.

  Joe Randazzo

  Laughter, Soul, Needs

  "Former 'Onion' editor: Freedom of speech cannot be killed" by Joe Randazzo, www.msnbc.com. January 7, 2015.

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• Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.

  Jonathan Swift

  Sarcasm, Glasses, Faces

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “The Very Best of Jonathan Swift In Plain and Simple English (Translated)”, p.534, BookCaps Study Guides

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• Satire is a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended.

  John Dryden

  Vices, Kind, Humans

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• Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

  Lord Byron

  Song, Sarcasm, Fool

  'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers' (1809) l. 5

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• Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Inspirational, Funny, Money

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.24, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

  Alexander Pope

  Literature, Praise, Disguise

  William Lisle Bowles, Alexander Pope (1820). “A reply to an "Unsentimental sort of critic,": the reviewer of "Spence's Anecdotes" in the Quarterly review for October [i.e. July] 1820; otherwise to a certain critic and grocer, the family of the Bowleses!!”, p.15

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• In the present state of the world it is difficult not to write lampoons.

  Juvenal

  Writing, World, States

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• It is difficult not to write satire.

  Juvenal

  Writing, Difficult

  Juvenal (1871). “The satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius ...”, p.204

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• When dunces are satiric, I take it for a panegyric.

  Jonathan Swift

  Dunces

  Jonathan Swift, John Mitford (1854). “The Poetical Works of Jonathan Swift: With a Life”, p.168

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• People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House.

  Robin Williams

  Funny, Memorable, Humor

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• Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet.

  Alexander Pope

  Running, Tilt, Weapons

  "The complete poetical works of Alexander Pope".

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• Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Games, Lessons, Parody

  1967 Interview in Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, Spring.

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• Tomorrow is a satire on today, And shows its weakness.

  Edward Young

  Weakness, Literature, Today

  Edward Young, Dr. Doran (John) (1854). “Imperium Pelagi, a naval lyric. Epistles to Mr. Pope, concerning the authors of the age. Sea-piece. The foreign address; or the best argument for peace. Epitaph on Lord Aubrey Beauclerk. Reflections on the public situation of the kingdom. An epistle to the right hon. Sir Robert Walpole. The old man's relapse. Resignation. Tragedies. Prose works”, p.79

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• What we need is a rebirth of satire, of dissent, of irreverence, of an uncompromising insistence that phoniness is phony and platitudes are platitudinous.

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Deception, Needs, Irreverence

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• Satires and lampoons on particular people circulate more by giving copies in confidence to the friends of the parties, than by printing them.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Party, People, Giving

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• Verse satire indeed is entirely our own.

  Quintilian

  Verses

  'Institutio Oratoria' bk. 10, ch. 1, sect. 93 (nostra meaning Roman as opposed to Greek)

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• When satire flies abroad on falsehood's wing, Short is her life, and impotent her sting; But when to truth allied, the wound she gives Sinks deep, and to remotest ages lives.

  Charles Churchill

  Wings, Giving, Age

  Charles Churchill, Robert Southey (1854). “The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill: With Copious Notes and a Life of the Author”, p.177

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• Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

  Jonathan Swift

  Sarcastic, Sarcasm, Glasses

  'The Battle of the Books' (1704) preface

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• Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave a simplicity in her that she can no more be made ridiculous than an oak or a pine.

  James Russell Lowell

  Brave, Simplicity, Ridiculous

  James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.433, Delphi Classics

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