Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Quote of the Day (James Russell Lowell, on a Sneer as ‘The Weapon of the Weak’)


“A sneer is the weapon of the weak. Like other devil's weapons, it is always cunningly ready to our hand, and there is more poison in the handle than in the point.” —American poet, editor, essayist and diplomat James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), “Chaucer” (1870), in The Works of James Russell Lowell: Literary Essays (1890)

I leave it to my readers to pick the most ardent contemporary practitioner of the sneer. 

Okay, I’ll give two hints—1) he talks a lot about others being "weak"; 2) he can insult anyone at will, but is constitutionally incapable of taking a joke at his own expense

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