I have upon occasion been called a sarcastic smartass. Truth be told, I’ve been called that on many occasions by many people and I wear that mantle with pride. It probably will explain this post that concerns two of my all-time favorite people, Oscar Wilde and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), two of the most famous smartasses in the world. History calls them humorists, rascals, and intellectuals but that’s just history being kind. They took biting humor and sarcasm to new levels and did it in such a way as to make people love and respect them. Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about that. Here’s a little personal information on Oscar with a collection of his quotes.
Oscar Fingal O’Flaherty Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s.
- “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
- “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
- “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
- “I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
- “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
- “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
- “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
- “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
- “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
- “Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”
Now for a little taste of Mark Twain. He was a good old down-home boy who had the ability to make politicians shiver in their boots and the rest of us to laugh at his humorous way of seeing things.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), best known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the “greatest humorist the United States has produced”. Here a a few pearls of wisdom from Mark.
- “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”
- “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.”
- “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
- “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
- “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
- “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
- “Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”
- “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
Back in my college days when I thought I knew everything but really didn’t, I had a professor once ask me what person living or dead would I like to sit down and have a meaningful conversation with. I can’t remember my answer but I’m sure it was stupid and meaningless because at that time I was totally clueless. If I could communicate with him now these two gentlemen would be my first and second choices. Better yet, I’d love to have them both sitting with me in a corner of a dark quiet pub sharing a bottle of brandy or bourbon and puffing on a cigar to discuss the state of the world or anything else they’d like to tell me.
As Always
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