Facetious Quotes

• I don't want to sound facetious, but humour is the key to the soul. You know what I mean?

  Martin Lawrence

  Mean, Keys, Soul

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• I pass by that it is very culpable to be facetious in obscene and smutty matters.

  Isaac Barrow

  Matter, Obscene

  Isaac Barrow (1830). “The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow”, p.366

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• The miser and the glutton are two facetious buzzards: one hides his store, and the other stores his hide.

  Josh Billings

  Two, Buzzards, Stores

  83 Copy quote

• I am perhaps being a bit facetious but if some of my good Baptist brethren in Georgia had done a little preaching from the pulpitagainst the K.K.K. in the '20s, I would have a little more genuine American respect for their Christianity!

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Prejudice, Done, Baptists

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• To be over much facetious is the accomplishment of courtiers and blemish of the wise.

  Saadi

  Wise, Accomplishment, Wit

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• I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company, yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof.

  Thomas Browne

  Dream, Laughing, Way

  Sir Thomas Browne (1844). “Religio Medici. Its sequel, Christian Morals ... With resemblant passages from Cowper's Task, and a verbal index. [Edited by John Peace.]”, p.121

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• The story is told of Lord Kelvin, a famous Scotch physicist of the last century, that after he had given a lecture on atoms and molecules, one of his students came to him with the question, "Professor, what is your idea of the structure of the atom." "What," said Kelvin, "The structure of the atom? Why, don't you know, the very word 'atom' means the thing that can't be cut. How then can it have a structure?" "That," remarked the facetious young man, "shows the disadvantage of knowing Greek."

  Arthur Compton

  Mean, Cutting, Science

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• I am not being facetious when I say that the real enemies in this country are the Pentagon and its pals in big business.

  Bella Abzug

  Country, Business, Real

  Bella S. Abzug (1972). “Bella!: Ms. Abzug Goes to Washington”, Saturday Review Press

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• Socrates, when informed of some derogating speeches one had used concerning him behind his back, made only this facetious reply, "Let him beat me too when I am absent.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Speech, Scandal, Used

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• The two girls disappeared into the stern cabin once more. Will watched them go, then asked Halt, 'Anything you'd like me to do? Grow a beard? Learn to walk like a rooster?' 'If you could stop asking facetious questions, that'd be a start,' Halt told him. 'But it's probably a little late in life for you to do that.

  John Flanagan

  Girl, Two, Roosters

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• A favorite science fiction writer of mine is William Faulkner! It was an idea that came to me once, years ago, and I've never quite been able to shake it. This is facetious, on one level at least. There are telepaths in As I Lay Dying. But I think the most compelling thing for me is there are moments with him where I just feel these are not humans talking to each other. These are some hyper-intelligent, yet-to-be-born organisms. The way they look at the past without having any loss of knowledge – everything that ever happened is still here.

  Robert Reed

  Loss, Thinking, Intelligent

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• MR. KHARIS: 'Does Mr. Celine seriously suggest that the United States Government is in need of a guardian?' MR. CELINE: 'I am merely offering a way out for your client. Any private individual with a record of such incessant murder and robbery would be glad to cop an insanity plea. Do you insist that your client was in full possession of its reason at Wounded Knee? At Hiroshima? At Dresden?' JUSTICE IMMHOTEP: 'You become facetious, Mr. Celine.' MR. CELINE: 'I have never been more serious.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Offering, Government, Justice

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