I just discovered an old collection of quotations I must have started years ago. Thought you might like them. Needless to say the funnies are all from Groucho!

Steve

Copy/paste.....


Serious ones:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
-Upton Sinclair

"A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain."
-??

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
-George Orwell

"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues."
- George Orwell

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
--George Orwell

"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act."
--George Orwell

"All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others."
--George Orwell

“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.” --George Orwell

“Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper”
--George Orwell

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.”
-- ??


The funny ones:

"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."
--Groucho Marx

"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. "
--Groucho Marx

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book"
--Groucho Marx

"I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER"
--Groucho Marx

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
--Groucho Marx

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."
--Groucho Marx

Great set of quotes.

One of the two without attribution: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.”

is also one of Groucho Marx's.

The other unattributed quote: "A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain."

is by Mark Twain

How about these from appraisal reports...


“His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity”

“Since my last report, he has reached rock bottom and has started to dig”

“She sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them”

“He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle”

"Unfortunately no, I don't. I find his films about as funny as getting an arrow through the neck, and then discovering there's a gas bill tied to it."

Blackadder

Of Chaplin yes? I tend to agree.

Continuing Skylark's theme of appraisal remarks, I once saw this on a soldier attending a small arms course

"...the only good to come out of this course is that a village has been deprived of its idiot for a fortnight..."

Some of the Blackadder lines are hilarious:

“You wouldn't know a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing 'Subtle Plans Are Here Again.'”

"I'm as poor as a church mouse, that's just had an enormous tax bill on the very day his wife ran off with another mouse, taking all the cheese."

"A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn."


Steve

Hahaha... I was going to post more but resisted the urge. I'll admit that Blackadder is my hero, I aspire to reach his dizzy heights of sarcastic wit

*Goes off to formulate a cunning plan that's cunning as a fox that's professor of cunning at Oxford University*

I like the Monster Raving Loony Party's election slogan:

"Vote Loony - you know it makes sense".

Does that party still exist? Will they be fielding candidates at the next election?

I never found Charlie Chaplin that funny, but then I suppose humour dates - though my husband adores P.G.Woodhouse's novels and those were written some time back.

I followed a car at the time the liberal party merged with the social democratic party.

They had 2 bumber stickers in the back window the first read SDP LIBERAL ALLIANCE
the second advertising their local am dram production. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

The party does exist, but Screaming Lord Sutch (their famed glorious leader and founder) died some years ago, sadly

I just Wiki'd him... what a character. It's a very sad story regarding his death through depression -> suicide, hence depriving british politics of a very entertaining man (and some much needed light-hearted relief).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screaming_Lord_Sutch

I'd swap him for Gordon Brown right now, given the choice!

Wodehouse is great! I think he was rediscovered after the Jeeves & Wooster series with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

Re. old comedy, my 13 yr old son loves the old Goon shows that my own father and grandfather listened to in the 1950s!

I also have quite a collection of mp3s of the Tony Hancock radio shows which I didn't like at first but now find hilarious.... esp. with Sid James, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Williams etc. The test pilot scene where Ken Williams taps on the cockpit of the plane and asks to come in "cos it's bloomin' freezin' out here" also cracks me up!


Steve

Not famous at all, but amusing none the less.

Seen attached to a front gate I walked passed recently:

NO COLD CALLERS PLEASE
(violators will be shot, survivors will be shot again)


Another I read recently, but unattributed:

....success is not magical or mysterious. Success is a result of the consistent application of basic fundamentals to the task in hand.

'If I had all the money I'd spent on drink - I'd spend it on drink.' - Sir Henry Rawlinson

I'm surprised the police haven't been round there wanting to search the place for firearms what with the completely barmy times we seem to be living in...

But the country did vote Loony - many times, starting with Thatcher's Conservatives and continuing with Bliar's New Labour.

I still like the lines George Best came out with when he was interviewed late in his life

"Most of my money went on wine, women and song, the rest I wasted"

Here in Italy I've seen quite a lot of notices on gates with pictures of dogs and guns and "Beware the dog... and owner"

Actually it's still not difficult to get a licence for a gun here. Like in France. The weird thing is that society here seems less violent than in the UK. Why is that?

We also still kiss and cuddle small children when they want us to. Apparently, you're not allowed to do that anymore in the UK. According to the tabloids, everyone in the UK is a pedophile. Since nobody is questioning this, I guess it must be true.

Last one out, switch off the lights and say goodnight to George Orwell who must spinning very fast in his grave.

Steve