quotations about satire
Satirical writers and talkers are not half so clever as they think themselves, nor as they are thought to be. They do winnow the corn, it is true, but it is to feed upon the chaff. It is much easier for an ill-natured than for a good-natured man to be witty; but the most gifted men that I have known, have been the least addicted to depreciate either friends or foes.
RICHARD SHARP
Letters and Essays in Prose and Verse
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
VOLTAIRE
Lettre a Bordes, January 10, 1769
When scandal has new-minted an old lie,
Or tax'd invention for a fresh supply,
'Tis call'd a satire, and the world appears
Gathering around it with erected ears.
WILLIAM COWPER
Charity
The feathered arrow of satire has often been wet with the heart's blood of its victims.
ISAAC DISRAELI
attributed, Day's Collacon