Satire Quotes

• 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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• A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Libel, Angry

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• satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Reality, Exaggeration, Wrapping

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.208, Random House

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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 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 moral outrage transformed into comic art.

  Philip Roth

  Art, Humor, Moral

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• Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar.

  Molly Ivins

  Powerful, Weapons, Vulgar

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

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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 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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• 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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• 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 lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

  Voltaire

  Lying, Men, Eulogy

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• If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up.

  Barry Humphries

  Giving Up, Might, Wells

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• Satire that is seasonable and just is often more effectual than law or gospel.

  Josh Billings

  Law

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

  John Dryden

  Vices, Kind, Humans

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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, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.

  Jonathan Swift

  Offence

  'A Tale of a Tub' (1704) 'The Author's Preface'

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• The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little - or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.

  Anthony Trollope

  Nature, Spring, Writing

  Anthony Trollope (2014). “An Autobiography: and Other Writings”, p.159, OUP Oxford

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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 tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.

  Lenny Bruce

  Time, Sarcasm, Thinking

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• Satire or sense, alas! Can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

  Alexander Pope

  Butterfly, Wheels, Break

  "An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot" l. 307 (1735)

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• Unless a love of virtue light the flame,
  Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame;
  He hides behind a magisterial air
  He own offences, and strips others' bare.

  William Cowper

  Light, Air, Flames

  William Cowper (1855). “The Complete Poetical Works of William Cowper: With Life, and Critical Notice of His Writings. Eight Engravings on Steel”, p.78

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• There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs... begins.

  Isaac Hayes

  Religious, Racist, World

  "Isaac Hayes Quits 'South Park'", www.foxnews.com. March 13, 2006.

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• When television producers say it is the parents obligation to keep children away from the tube, they reach the self satire point of warning that their own product is unsuitable for consumption

  Gregg Easterbrook

  Children, Self, Parent

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