Discourse

"Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment."

"The ironist, unlike the satirist or the misanthrope, needs appropriate vehicles for his positive values."

"Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time."

"“You like irony now too?” “Irony tastes good. Like sausage.”"

"God is an iron … If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron."

"Surely the cosmic irony that loves men's dullness because it alone can preserve them from madness, and retorts upon the cosmic terrors with a jest, is higher than gallantry and more enduring. It arrives at tolerance for all human shortcomings; it embraces high and low in its sympathies; it achieves urbanity as a final goal. It is the stuff of which great literature is made."

"He knew that women appreciated neither irony nor sarcasm, but simple jokes and funny stories. He was amply provided with both."

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too."

"Given a long enough time, of course, a wide enough frame, there is nothing said or done, ever, that isn't ironic in the end."

"Irony, some say, is the art of juxtaposing incongruous parts. One needs a knowing distance. Irony presupposes detachment, which, in the case of Animal Rights, we may forgive Doctor Dillamond for being without."

"Irony is the cultivation of the spirit and therefore follows next after immediacy; then comes the ethicist, then the humourist, then the religious person."

"The presence of irony does not necessarily mean that the earnestness is excluded. Only assistant professors assume that."

"Irony limits, finitizes, and circumscribes and thereby yields truth, actuality, content; it disciplines and punishes and thereby yields balance and consistency."

"Irony is a qualification of subjectivity."

"Irony is the birth-pangs of the objective mind (based upon the misrelationship, discovered by the I, between existence and the idea of existence). Humor is the birth-pangs of the absolute mind (based upon the misrelationship, discovered by the I, between the I and the idea of the I.)"

"Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic — if it is pulled out I shall die."

"There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world."

"One of the earliest and best statements of this counter-trend [challenging the concept of irony] can be found in Hegel's Aesthetik (written in the 1820s, published in 1835). With pointed and polemical language Hegel argued that because irony sees the world as fundamentally ambiguous, it tends to condone an attitude of "irresolution" and "loss of seriousness" which inevitably leads to escapism and irresponsibility. Furthermore, Hegel contended, the ironic stance is shamelessly elitist. Since the ironist believes the world is too complicated to change, he feels justified in withdrawing into a "god-like geniality." From this perspective above the fray, the privileged "artistic" few, the cognoscenti, are inclined to "look down upon the ordinary man as limited and dull." The result, according to Hegel, is both a contempt for the masses and an inability to become involved in meaningful causes. Hence, ironic detachment seemed to Hegel to be the cause of a peculiarly modern form of sickness: one which predisposed the individual to "abstract inwardness" and eroded his power to become filled with a personal "content that is solid and substantial." With the loss of what he termed "character" came the loss of something even more important: the vision of what is "highest and best" in life. If an age were entirely given over to irony it would be unable to take seriously the central issues of "justice, morality, and truth" because it would know how to maintain only a sardonic relationship to them."

"Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom."

"The antidote to hubris, to overweening pride, is irony, that capacity to discover and systematize clear ideas."

"The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement."

"Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument."

"Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father's, it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence. Irony is "a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result." For instance: a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck. He is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony. If a Kurd, after surviving bloody battle with Saddam Hussein's army and a long, difficult escape through the mountains, is crushed and killed by a parachute drop of humanitarian aid, that, my friend, is irony writ large. Darryl Stingley, the pro football player, was paralyzed after a brutal hit by Jack Tatum. Now Darryl Stingley's son plays football, and if the son should become paralyzed while playing, it will not be ironic. It will be coincidental. If Darryl Stingley's son paralyzes someone else, that will be closer to ironic. If he paralyzes Jack Tatum's son, that will be precisely ironic."

"Ironic philosophies produce passionate works."

"Time changes all things and cultivates even in herself an appreciation of irony."

"'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low: So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart."

"Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte."

"Amplification is the vice of modern oratory. It is an insult to an assembly of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting instead of persuading. Speeches measured by the hour, die with the hour."

"It may be observed,   in a general way, that life would be   better, distinctly If more of the people   with nothing to say were able to say it   succinctly."

"THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT - SECRET - 9 August 1940 - WAR CABINET - BREVITY. - Memorandum by the Prime Minister. To do our work, we all have to read a mass of papers. Nearly all of them are far too long. This wastes time, while energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points. I ask my colleagues and their staffs to see to it that their Reports are shorter. (i) The aim should be Reports which set out the main points in a series of short, crisp paragraphs. (ii) If a Report relies on detailed analysis of some complicated factors, or on statistics, these should be set out in an Appendix. (iii) Often an occasion is best met by submitting not a full-dress Report, but an Aide-memoire consisting of headings only, which can be expanded orally if needed. (iv) Let us have an end of such phrases as these, "It is also of importance to bear in mind the following considerations......", or "Consideration should be given to the possibility of carrying into effect......" Most of these woolly phrases are mere padding, which can be left out altogether, or replaced by a single word. Let us not shrink from using the short expressive phrase, even if it is conversational. Reports drawn up on the lines I propose may at first seem rough as compared with the flat surface of officialese jargon. But the saving in time will be great, while the discipline of setting out the real points concisely will prove an aid to clearer thinking. W.S.C. 10 Downing Street. 9th August 1940"

"Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending--sit down."

"I do not object to people looking at their watches when I am speaking. But I strongly object when they start shaking them to make sure they are still going."

"Sie wissen, dass ich langsam schreibe, allein dies kommt hauptsächlich daher, weil ich mir nie anders gefallen kann, als wenn in kleinem Raum möglichst viel ist, und kurz zu schreiben viel mehr Zeit kostet als lang."

"But let the wise be warned against too great readiness at explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong."

"Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire."

"Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon."

"Brevity is the soul of wit."

"The people in the government who were voted into power are lying to us. And us kids seem to be the only ones who notice and our parents to call BS. Companies trying to make caricatures of the teenagers these days, saying that all we are self-involved and trend-obsessed and they hush us into submission when our message doesn't reach the ears of the nation, we are prepared to call BS. Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS. They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. They say no laws could have prevented the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids don't know what we're talking about, that we're too young to understand how the government works. We call BS. If you agree, register to vote. Contact your local congresspeople. Give them a piece of your mind."

"The Democrats have to now decide whether they will continue defrauding the public with ridiculous bullshit, partisan investigations, or whether they will apologize to the American people."

"However studiously and conscientiously the bullshitter proceeds, it remains true that he is also trying to get away with something. There is surely in his work, as in the work of the slovenly craftsman some kind of laxity which resists or eludes the demands of a disinterested and austere discipline."

"[The bullshitter] does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."

"The production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic are more excessive than his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic."

"You know what? There's a jetstream of bullshit coming out of your mouth, my friend ..."

"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit."

"…..the precision of the epic bullshitter..."

"Bullshit is a scientific term for information spread without concern for truth."

"Everyone has a belief system, B.S., the trick is to learn not to take anyone's B.S. too seriously, especially your own."

"Achoo! … Sorry, I'm allergic to bullshit."

"Good luck walks and bullshit flies."

"Henry Rollins, Feast"