Harold McMillan on John Foster Dulles:
"His speech is very slow, but it is well able to keep up with his ideas."

Lady Astor (the former Nancy Langhorne from Virginia USA, the first woman to sit in the House of Commons) to Winston Churchill:
"Winston, if I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee"

Churchill: "Nancy, if I were your husband I'd drink it."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/content/images/2009/02/10/blackadder_baldrick_470_470x200.jpg

Blackadder - "Baldrick, you're fired."
Baldrick - (aghast) "Oh, but I've been in your family since 1532!"
Blackadder - "So has syphilis. Now get out."
***********

Baldrick to Percy: "You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would. Your brain would make a grain of sand look large and ungainly and the part of you that can't be mentioned, I am reliably informed by women around the Court, wouldn't be worth mentioning even if it could be."
************

Prince Ludwig the Indestructible (an evil German):"You find yourself amusing, Blackadder."

His admirably cocky prisoner Blackadder: "I try not to fly in the face of public opinion."
************

Blackadder: "Bloody explorers, ponce off to Mumbo Jumbo land, come home with a tropical disease, a suntan and a bag of brown lumpy things, and Bob's your uncle, everyone's got a picture of them in the lavatory."
************

Blackadder: "To you, Baldrick, the Renaissance was something that just happened to other people, wasn't it?"
************

Percy: "I'm sorry I'm late."

Blackadder: "No, don't bother apologising. I'm sorry you're alive."
**********

"Congrats. Stop. Have discovered only person in world less funny than you. Stop. Name - Baldrick. Stop. PS. Please, please, please - stop." (Blackadder's telegram to Charlie Chaplin, after seeing Baldrick's Chaplin impression)
********************

Blackadder: "Baldrick, your brain is like the four-headed, man-eating haddock fish-beast of Aberdeen."
Baldrick: "In what way?"
Edmund Blackadder: "It doesn't exist."
*******************

Baldrick: "I have a cunning plan to save the king."
Edmund Blackadder: "Ha! Well forgive me if a don't do a cartwheel of joy; your family's history in the department of cunning planning is about as impressive as Stumpy O'Leg McNolegs' personal best in the Market Harborough marathon."
********************

Blackadder: "Shut up, with the greatest respect, your Majesty."
**********************

Blackadder: "Your head is as empty as a eunuch's underpants."
***********************

Blackadder to the disgusting Baldrick: "You're the worst entertainer since St Paul the Evangelist toured Palestine with his trampoline act."
***********************

Blackadder: "You're the worst cook in the entire world. There are amoeba on Saturn who can boil a better egg than you. Your Filet Mignon in sauce Béarnaise look like dog-turds in glue."

Baldrick: "That's because they are."

Blackadder: "Your plum-duff tastes like it's a molehill decorated with rabbit-droppings."

Baldrick: "I thought you wouldn't notice."

Blackadder: "Your cream custard has the texture of cat's vomit."

************************
Captain Blackadder: "Baldrick, what are you doing out there?"

Private Baldrick: "I'm carving something on a bullet, sir."

Captain Blackadder: "What are you carving?"

Private Baldrick: "I'm carving 'Baldrick', sir."

Captain Blackadder: "Why?"

Private Baldrick: "It's part of a cunning plan, sir."

Captain Blackadder: "Of course it is."

Private Baldrick: "You know how they say that somewhere there's a bullet with your name on it?"

Captain Blackadder: "Yeeees?"

Private Baldrick: "Well I thought that if I owned the bullet with my name on it, I'll never get hit by it. Cause I'll never shoot myself..."

Captain Blackadder: "Oh, shame!"

Private Baldrick: "And the chances of there being *two* bullets with my name on it are very small indeed."

Captain Blackadder: "Yes, it's not the only thing that is 'very small indeed'. Your brain for example - your brain's so minute, Baldrick, that if a hungry cannibal cracked your head open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit."
*****************

Blackadder: "I've a horrid suspicion that Baldrick's plan will be the stupidest thing we've heard since Lord Nelson's famous signal at the Battle of the Nile: 'England knows Lady Hamilton's a virgin, poke my eye out and cut off my arm if I'm wrong' ".
*******************

Captain Blackadder to Squadron Leader Flasheart: "Unfortunately most of the infantry think you're a prat. Ask them who they'd rather meet, Squadron Commander Flasheart or the man who cleans out the public toilets in Aberdeen, and they'd go for Wee Jock Poo-Pong McPlop every time."

Blackadder on Dr Johnson's dictionary: "It's the most pointless book since 'How To Learn French' was translated into French."
****************

Blackadder on the French: "I hardly think a nation that eats frogs and would go to bed with the kitchen sink if it put on a tutu is in any position to preach couthness."
***************

Blackadder: "A war hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, high chief of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 5000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside."
***************
Percy: "I must say, Edmund, it was jolly nice of you to ask me to share your breakfast before the rigours of the day begin."

Edmund: "Well, it is said, Percy, that civilised man seeks out good and intelligent company, so that, through learned discourse, he may rise above the savage and closer to God."

Percy: "Yes, I've heard that."

Edmund: "Personally, however, I like to start the day with a total dickhead to remind me I'm best."
*****************

Blackadder: "He's got more mills than you have brain-cells, sir."
The Prince Regent: "How many mills?"
Blackadder: "Seven, sir".
***********************

Blackadder to Baldrick: "Unless I think of something, tomorrow we go to meet our maker: in my case God, in your case God knows, but I doubt he's won any design awards."
*******************

Blackadder: "Baldrick, in the Amazonian rain forests there are tribes of Indians as yet untouched by civilisation who have developed more convincing Charlie Chaplin impressions than yours."
********************

Blackadder: "You really are as thick as a bowl of clotted cream that's been left out in the sun by some clot, until the clots are so clotted up you couldn't unclot them with an electric declotter, aren't you Baldrick?"
***********************

Mrs. Miggins: "Bonjour, monsieur."
Blackadder: "What?"
Mrs. Miggins:" Bonjour, monsieur - it's French".
Blackadder: "So is eating frogs, cruelty to geese and urinating in the street, but that's no reason to inflict it on the rest of us."
*********************

Percy: "Oh good, I see the target is ready." [Picks up the bow] "I'd like to see the Spaniard who could make his way past me."
Blackadder: "Well, go to Spain. There are millions of 'em."

bogarde73 wrote on Feb 2^nd, 2014 at 1:27pm:

Lady Astor (the former Nancy Langhorne from Virginia USA, the first woman to sit in the House of Commons) to Winston Churchill: "Winston, if I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee" Churchill: "Nancy, if I were your husband I'd drink it."

thats my fav as well..... so quick..such a put down.

I never watched Blackadder I am so sorry now...

Groucho Marx...I never forget a face but in your case I'll make an exception.

Groucho....I'd never belong to a club that would have me as a member.

Bette Davis...What a dump!

Australian fast bowler Glen McGrath to portly South African Eddo Brands (I think?)…

McGrath - “Hey Brands, why are you so fat?”

Brands – “Because every time I f.k. your wife she gives me a cookie”

>>>>>

Shane Warne to South African Darryl Cullinan (Warne had got him out many times and they had not faced off for a while)

Warne – “I’ve been waiting 2 years to get another crack at you!”

Cullinan – “Looks like you spent it eating” - baaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha

“Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?"
Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... "
Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?"
Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!" Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price”
― Winston Churchill.

yeh - ha ha - I'd forgotten that one froggie. The man was a master for the gems. Of course a lot of them might have been said by other people but what's it matter.

Churchill was such a classic, my favourite

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.


Someone closer to home

"You (Richard Carleton) had an important place in Australian society on the ABC and you gave it up to be a pop star...with a big cheque...and now you're on to this sort of stuff. That shows what a 24 carat pissant you are, Richard, that's for sure"

On Former Labour politician, Jim McClelland (over the phone):

"That you Jim? Paul Keating here. Just because you swallowed a f***ing dictionary when you were about 15 doesn't give you the right to pour a bucket of poo over the rest of us."

"He is the greatest job and investment destroyer since the bubonic plague."

"Now listen mate," [to John Browne, Minister of Sport, who was proposing a 110 per cent tax deduction for contributions to a Sports Foundation] "you're not getting 110 per cent. You can forget it. This is a smacking Boulevard Hotel special, this is. The trouble is we are dealing with a sports junkie here [gesturing towards Bob Hawke]. I go out for a piss and they pull this one on me. Well that's the last time I leave you two alone. From now on, I'm sticking to you two like sh!t to a blanket.

"You've been in the dye pot again, Andrew."

Speaking of the dead, of whom we are cautioned not to speak ill, do you remember Tammy Fraser on/to Richard Carlton:
"You are lower than a snake's duodenum" followed by a memorable walk out through darkened studios.

Apparently Henry Parkes (NSW Premier 5 times and campaigner for federation) had a sharp wit. 

Member of Parliament to Parkes: Sir you are two-faced
Parkes: Obviously you're not or you wouldn't have brought that one. 

I remember the saying when Malcolm Fraser was P.M. "Tammy has one, Malcolm is one."

George Reid's quick wit and affinity for humour were demonstrated when a heckler pointed to his ample paunch and exclaimed "What are you going to call it, George?" to which Reid replied: "If it's a boy, I'll call it after myself. If it's a girl I'll call it Victoria.

But if, as I strongly suspect, it's nothing but piss and wind, I'll name it after you."

From wiki

Groucho, "you can leave in a taxi or leave in a huff but where you gunna find a huff at this time of the day?"

A guy and his wife are at the casino and he sees a particularly attractive lady. He says to his wife:

"Why can't you look like that?"

she replies

"If I looked like that I wouldn't be married to you!"

During the 1972 Federal election the libs took out a full page Ad showing Bob Hawke (then ACTU leader) holding a mask of Gough Whitlam with the caption: "If you vote labor this is who you get"
Next Day Labor responded with an Ad of Billy McMahon holding a mask of Billy McMahon and the caption; "If you vote Liberal this is who you get"

“And now, to make matters worse, they (the Tories) have elected a foetus as party leader.” Former Sports Minister Tony Banks on William Hague, Conservative Party leader from 1997 to 2001 and now the Foreign Secretary

http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/skelmersdaleadv/may2009/3/5/william-hague-samples-one-of-rathbones-steak-pies-during-his-visit-to-up-holland-_460-516021213.jpg
**************

“Sex with Nicholas was like having a very large wardrobe with a very small key falling on top of you.” An ex lover of portly Tory MP Nicholas Soames, the MP for Mid Sussex, the Shadow Defence Secretary between 2003 and 2005 and Sir Winston Churchill's grandson

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/58102000/jpg/_58102088_-1.jpg
*****************

“Their lyrics are unrecognisable as the Queen’s English.” Former British PM Ted Heath on The Beatles

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2010/6/29/1277832716412/Edward-Heath-biography-006.jpg
******************

http://www.vintagengland.co.uk/shop/images/winston%20cigar%20(2).jpg


“They are not fit to manage a whelk stall.” Churchill on the Labour Party
*****************

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” Churchill on Neville Chamberlain
******************

Labour MP Bessie Braddock to Churchill: “Winston, you’re drunk!”

Churchill: “Bessie, you’re ugly, and tomorrow morning I shall be sober”
****************

Anonymous woman - "There are two things I don't like about you, Mr Churchill - your politics and your moustache."

Churchill - "My dear madam, pray do not disturb yourself. You are not likely to come into contact with either."

********************

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792, the guy who invented the snack) - "Upon my honour, Wilkes, I don't know whether you'll die on the gallows or of the pox."

John Wilkes MP (1725-1797) - "That depends, my Lord, upon whether I embrace your Lordship's principles or your mistress."
****************

From Tomorrow Never Dies:


Admiral Roebuck - "With all due respect M, I don't think you have the balls for this."

M - "Perhaps. The advantage is I don't have to think with them all the time."
****************

An incident which supposedly happened in the British Army:

Senior Warrant Officer (jabbing a recruit with his pace stick) - "There is a piece of s**t at the end of this stick."

New recruit - "Not at this end there isn't."
******************

The Damp Rag Rant

Probably the best one from recent years, an absolute classic from the European Parliament from February 2010:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/assets/images/2010/02/25/100225160448_farage_rompuy_bbc_466.jpg

Nigel Farage, the leader of anti-EU party UKIP and the MEP (Member of the European Parliament) for South East England, to the unelected EU President Herman Van Rompuy: "We were told that when we had a president, we'd see a giant global political figure, a man who would be the political leader for 500 million people, the man that would represent all of us on the world stage, the man whose job was so important that of course you're paid more than President [Barack] Obama.

Well, I'm afraid what we got was you ... I don't want to be rude but, really, you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk and the question I want to ask is: 'Who are you? I'd never heard of you. Nobody in Europe had ever heard of you.'

I can speak on behalf of the majority of British people in saying that we don't know you, we don't want you, and the sooner you are put out to grass, the better."

America’s got talent.

This black woman sings a gospel type song – it was bloody atrocious.

Simon Cowell asked

SC - “Where do you think you got your voice from?”

Woman - “God gave it to me”

SC – “I think he wants a refund”

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one."
- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one."
- Winston Churchill, in response.
***********************

“A sheep in sheep’s clothing... a modest man with much to be modest about.”
- Winston Churchill on Clement Atlee
*********************

“Tell the Lord Privy Seal I am sealed in my privy, and can only deal with one sh*t at a time.”
- Churchill's response to a clerk knocking on his door and telling him that the Lord Privy Seal wanted to meet with the former prime minister
******************

"If Labour wins today can the last person to leave Britain please turn off the lights?"
- The Sun newspaper on the prospect of a Labour government
****************

“It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.”
- Mark Twain on Jane Austen
****************

"One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”
- Oscar Wilde on Dicken's The Old Curiosity Shop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2locp7EDAw

He is a man suffering from petrified adolescence.
  - Aneurin Bevan (about Winston Churchill)

He would kill his own mother just so that he could use her skin to make a drum to beat his own praises.
  - Margot Asquith (about Winston Churchill)

I thought he was a young man of promise; but it appears he was a young man of promises.
- Arthur Balfour (about Winston Churchill)

Winston has devoted the best years of his life to preparing his impromptu speeches.
-  F. E. Smith (about Winston Churchill)

One could not even dignify him with the name of stuffed shirt. He was simply a hole on the air.
- George Orwell (about Stanley Baldwin, British PM from 1935 to 1937)

. . . a pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon, a mad fool with a frothy mouth.
- Martin Luther (about Henry VIII)

The plain truth is, that he was a most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the history of England.
  - Charles Dickens (about Henry VIII)

A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.
  - Benjamin Disraeli (about William Gladstone)

"If you vote Labour it will be the last free vote you ever cast" - the NZ Herald before the 1935 election in NZ.

Labour won in a landslide.

NZ is still a democracy.

I don't see where the put down is Peter, at least not in the generally accepted sense.

Winston has devoted the best years of his life to preparing his impromptu speeches.
-  F. E. Smith (about Winston Churchill)


I like that one cofgood and probably true to some extent anyway. You could just imagine him mulling the thoughts over in his mind most of his waking hours.

inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity

That was a very popular phrase when I was young but I never knew where it came from.

bogarde73 wrote on Feb 14^th, 2014 at 9:36am:

I don't see where the put down is Peter, at least not in the generally accepted sense.

I think Granny Herald was putting down the NZLP.

Just a thought, maybe I'm wrong...... :-?

Back in the early '70's, the abortion debate was raging, and malcolm Fraser was trying to put Whitlam on the spot, so in question time he asked him,
"Mr Whitlam, for once and all, can you tell us plainly, if you are in favour of legalised abortion, or not?"

To which Whitlam replied, "Yes, I am, and in your case I would make it compulsory, and retrospective."

Some Country Party Hack:

I am a country member.

Whitlam, interjecting “We remember.”

"There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion".

Winston Churchill

viewpoint wrote on Feb 15^th, 2014 at 8:58am:

"There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion". Winston Churchill

And one of his best:

"Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon".

Winston Churchill

MP: "Mr Churchill, must you fall asleep whilst I'm speaking?"

Churchill: "No, it's purely voluntary."
*****************

"We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought."
- Winston Churchill (about Ramsay MacDonald)
*********************

Mozart fan: "Herr Mozart.  I am thinking of writing symphonies.  Can you give me any suggestions as to how to get started?"

Mozart: "A symphony is a very complex musical form.  Perhaps you should begin with some simple lieder and work your way up to a symphony."

Mozart fan: "But Herr Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were eight years' old."

Mozart: "Yes, but I never asked anybody how."
******************

"He has the lucidity which is the byproduct of a fundamentally sterile mind."
- Aneurin Bevan (about Neville Chamberlain)
********************

"He has committed every crime that does not require courage."
-  Benjamin Disraeli (about Irish nationalist Daniel O’Connell)

St George of the Garden wrote on Feb 15^th, 2014 at 8:44am:

Some Country Party Hack: I am a country member. Whitlam, interjecting “We remember.”

I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't a Mr Lusher, whom Whitlam christened "Lusher the Gusher".
Very quick on his feet Whitlam . . .but not quick enough getting to the phone.

viewpoint wrote on Feb 15^th, 2014 at 9:02am:

viewpoint wrote on Feb 15th, 2014 at 8:58am: "There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion". Winston Churchill And one of his best: "Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon". Winston Churchill

No surprise that this old fool born into privilege did and said all he could to maintain the privilege .  Thank God he's gone.  A lot of Australians lost their lives at Gallipoli thanks to the privilege and vanity of this old fool.

ImSpartacus2 wrote on Feb 17^th, 2014 at 10:05am:

viewpoint wrote on Feb 15th, 2014 at 9:02am: viewpoint wrote on Feb 15th, 2014 at 8:58am: "There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion". Winston Churchill And one of his best: "Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon". Winston Churchill No surprise that this old fool born into privilege did and said all he could to maintain the privilege .  Thank God he's gone.  A lot of Australians lost their lives at Gallipoli thanks to the privilege and vanity of this old fool.

Wanker!

There are no doubt many definitions of the term "wanker" but I doubt that a teller of the truth is one of them.

bogarde73 wrote on Feb 14^th, 2014 at 9:40am:

Winston has devoted the best years of his life to preparing his impromptu speeches. -  F. E. Smith (about Winston Churchill) I like that one cofgood and probably true to some extent anyway. You could just imagine him mulling the thoughts over in his mind most of his waking hours. inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity That was a very popular phrase when I was young but I never knew where it came from.

its not only what is said.. but the way it is said.... ::) ::)

with the new age communications..a lot is going to be lost in the telling... :(

smilies are not the same..

Peter Freedman wrote on Mar 1^st, 2014 at 7:47pm:

There are no doubt many definitions of the term "wanker" but I doubt that a teller of the truth is one of them.

They are inhabitants of a village in Switzerland. They are all tellers of the truth. 

http://static.flickr.com/48/136422082_70c24498cf.jpg