A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

We need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war.

Peter Cook 1937–95 English comedian and actor

There never was a good war, or a bad peace.

Benjamin Franklin 1706–90 American politician, inventor, and scientist

I’d like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry.

Joseph Heller 1923–99 American novelist

to George VI, summer 1940:

All the same, sir, I would put some of the colonies in your wife’s name.

Joseph Herman Hertz 1872–1946 Slovakian-born British chief rabbi

of war in Iraq:

Vietnam without the mosquitoes.

Carl Hiaasen 1953– American writer

I think from now on they’re shooting without a script.

George S. Kaufman 1889–1961 American dramatist, on the German invasion of Russia

All castles had one major weakness. The enemy used to get in through the gift shop.

Peter Kay 1973– British comedian

If we’d had as many soldiers as that, we’d have won the war!

Margaret Mitchell 1900–49 American novelist, on seeing the number of Confederate troops in Gone with the Wind

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

George Orwell 1903–50 English novelist

Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.

Carl Sandburg 1878–1967 American poet

Retreat, hell! We’re only attacking in another direction.

Oliver P. Smith 1893–1977 American general

asked his impression of his first battle:

Like German opera, too long and too loud.

Evelyn Waugh 1903–66 English novelist

As Lord Chesterfield said of the generals of his day, ‘I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names, he trembles as I do.’

Duke of Wellington 1769–1852 British soldier and statesman, usually quoted ‘I don’t know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me’

Wealth

see alsoMONEY, POVERTY

If you would know what the Lord God thinks of money, you have only to look at those to whom he gives it.

Maurice Baring 1874–1945 British writer

People say I wasted my money. I say 90 per cent went on women, fast cars and booze. The rest I wasted.

George Best 1946–2005 Northern Irish footballer

A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.

Warren Buffett 1930– American businessman

I really love having money, because it lets me be lazy. Work’s really overrated.

Charlotte Church 1986– Welsh soprano

£40,000 a year [is] a moderate income—such a one as a man might jog on with.

Lord Durham 1792–1840 English Whig politician

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.

W. C. Fields 1880–1946 American humorist

The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights.

John Paul Getty 1892–1976 American industrialist

Wealth—any income that is at least $100 more a year than the income of one’s wife’s sister’s husband.

H. L. Mencken 1880–1956 American journalist and literary critic

The average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.

George Orwell 1903–50 English novelist

I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.

George Bernard Shaw 1856–1950 Irish dramatist

It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people.

Logan Pearsall Smith 1865–1946 American-born man of letters

I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich—rich is better.

Sophie Tucker 1884–1966 Russian-born American vaudeville artist

MARILYN MONROE: Real diamonds! They must be worth their weight in gold.

Billy Wilder 1906–2002 and I. A. L. Diamond 1915–88 screenwriters, in the film Some Like it Hot

I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, but it hasn’t changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I’m just wearing better shoes.

Oprah Winfrey 1954– American talk-show host

The Weather

The English winter—ending in July,

To recommence in August.

Lord Byron 1788–1824 English poet

Summer has set in with its usual severity.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772–1834 English poet, critic, and philosopher

to his cat, who disliked rain:

I know what’s wrong, my dear, but I really do not know how to turn it off.

Albert Einstein 1879–1955 German-born theoretical physicist

There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.

Ranulph Fiennes 1944– English explorer

A woman rang to say she heard there was a hurricane on the way. Well don’t worry, there isn’t.