TD is a veritable treasure trove of put downs and insults, with nearly every thread having at least one, sometimes humorous, sometimes not. I thought I'd offer a few inspirational famous quotes:
On one occasion, Churchill dealt with George Bernard Shaw in his usual way. Shaw wrote to Churchill:
‘I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend… if you have one’.
To which he received the reply: ‘Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.’
Sarah Bernhardt: ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’
Oscar Wilde (yes, we know he’s Irish): ‘I don’t mind if you burn’
Benjamin Disraeli on William Gladstone: ‘He has not a single redeeming defect’
Winston Churchill on Clement Attlee: ‘A modest man, who has much to be modest about’
Bessie Braddock: ‘Winston, you are drunk!’
Churchill: ‘Bessie, my dear, you are ugly. But, tomorrow, I shall be sober’
Lady Astor: ‘Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee’
Churchill: ‘Nancy, if you were my wife, I should drink it’
Churchill (After being disturbed while on the loo by the Lord Privy Seal): ‘Tell him I can only deal with one shit at a time’
Squire: ‘If I had a son who was an idiot, by Jove, I’d make him a parson’
Rev Sydney Smith: ‘Very probably, but I see your father was of a different mind’
The 4th Earl of Sandwich: ‘Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox’
John Wilkes: ‘That depends, my lord, on whether I embrace your lordship’s principles or your mistress’
Sir Thomas Beecham to a cellist: ‘Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it’
And one from an American: Groucho Marx: ‘She got her good looks from her father, he’s a plastic surgeon’