Here's some fun...

Charlie Sykes rightly bemoans the paucity of our current political insults, pointing out “Our expletives have grown tired, our language of abuse dumbed down and reduced to twitter slaps. Among his more deplorable legacies, Trump has shrunken the vocabulary of our democracy to the level of a badly-educated sixth grade mouth-breather.”

He goes on to return to that ever-bountiful mine of literary insults, one William Shakespeare. What he found is posted below.

But it made me think - all those guys in the 19th Century and earlier were pretty darned good with an insult. What about Balzac? Tolstoy? Trollope? Dickens? Twain, f’r chrissakes?

So, since this collection of readers are a bunch of smartypants, please post all the good/not so good/acceptable literary insults you can come up with.

Extra points if they apply to current events.

With that….

“That trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey Iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years?” Henry IV Part 1 (Act 2, Scene 4)

“Thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows” -Troilus and Cressida (Act 2, Scene 1)

“More of your conversation would infect my brain.” Coriolanus (Act 2, Scene 1)

Here’s a couple from Mencken, also a never-ending source of good material.

"Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary." -- H.L. Menken, writing about America's entry into World War I, 1918.

‘'As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron.'’

--H.L. Mencken, 1925

If you’re going to google for quotes, you can hardly ever do better than “Mark Twain insults.”

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