“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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