Dorothy Parker - esias - Lord Byron - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Ebenezer Elliott - John Byrom - Samuel Johnson - Paul Dehn - Ogden Nash - Anonymous & Authors Unknown - G K Chesterton - John Owen - Edmund Clerihew Bentley - Walter Savage Landor - Walter de la Mare - A E Housman - Benny Hill - Emily Dickinson - Samuel Wilberforce - Bob McCue - John Updike - A P Herbert - Robert Lowell - Wendy Cope - Thomas Hood - George Gamow - Desmond Skirrow - Harry Graham - Alexander Pope - John Wilmot - Hilaire Belloc - J R Pope - Gavin Ewart - George Carlin - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine TV - Langston Hughes - Tom Lehrer - James Thomson - Spitting Image TV - W S Gilbert - Muddy Waters - William Blake - W H Auden - Kenneth Grahame - Ronald Knox - Spike Milligan - Thomas Hood -
1,054. Résumé:
Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live. (Life’s Like That & Suicide & Gun & Gas & Epigrams) Dorothy Parker, Resume 1937
50,949. If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it. Dorothy Parker, Life magazine 2nd June 1927
1,051. Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania. (Life’s Like That & Love & Epigrams) Dorothy Parker, Comment
75,269. If I had a shiny gun
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folks that cause me pains. (Gun & Epigrams) Dorothy Parker
79,168. By the time you say you’re his,
Shivering and sighing
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying –
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying. (Lies & Epigrams & Romance) Dorothy Parker, Unfortunate Coincidence, 1937
90,199. If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think, How Lucky are the Dead. (Suicide & Epigrams) Dorothy Parker
94,340. In youth, it was a way I had,
To do my best to please.
And change, with every passing lad
To suit his theories.
But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do,
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you. (Youth & Epigrams & Woman) Dorothy Parker
90,226. I never see that prettiest thing –
A cherry bough gone white with Spring –
But what I think, How gay ’twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree. (Suicide & Tree & Epigrams) Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well
63,497. If I didn’t care for fun and such,
I’d probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn. (Apathy & Epigrams) Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope
74,973. Prince or commoner, tenor or bass,
Painter or plumber or never-do-well,
Do me a favor and shut your face –
Poets alone should kiss and tell. (Gossip & Epigrams) Dorothy Parker, The Collected Dorothy Parker
1,052. Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. (Life’s Like That & Love & Doubt & Epigrams) Dorothy Parker, Inventory 1937
1,053. Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses. (Life’s Like That & Spectacles & Girl & Epigrams) Dorothy Parker, New Item 1937
91,124. There was a time
I could have said
It wooder bin better
To stay in bed.
But now I say,
‘Let’s get up!’
Why?
Dunno.
Give up. (Bed & Epigrams) esias, Don’t, 1996
3,489. Hey diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle,
God’s up there,
The devil’s down there
And here am I.
Trapped.
In the middle. (Life’s Like That & Cat & God & Devil & I & Epigrams) Life is a Steaming Pile of Donkey Doo-Doos, esias ryder, 1996
52,367.
z
z
z
z
z
z
z
z (Epigrams & Lecture) esias, Waiting For a Lecture, 1997
96,719. I was working in the lab late one night
Squinting at a proton with all my might,
The brute double-bumped before my eyes –
And now I’m down for the Nobel Prize! (Proton & Epigrams) esias, Smashing Atoms, 2016
74,772. And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low,
It seemed the mockery of hell to fold
The rottenness of eighty years in gold. (George III & Grave & Epigrams) Lord Byron, on burial of George III
50,948. What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834, Epigram
49,650. What is a communist? One who has yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings;
Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing
To fork out his penny and pocket his shilling. (Communism & Epigrams) Ebenezer Elliott, Epigram, 1850
50,950. Some say, that Signor Bononcini,
Compared to Handel’s a mere ninny;
Others aver, to him, that Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.
Strange! That such high dispute should be
’Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee. John Byrom, on feuds between Handel & Bononcini, The London Journal 5th June 1725
74,777. God bless the king, I mean the faith’s defender;
God bless – (no harm in blessing) – the pretender;
But who pretender is, and who is king,
God bless them all – that’s quite another thing. (George III & Epigrams) John Byrom, Extempore Intended to Allay the Violence of Party Spirit
74,778. Come all ye foreign strolling gentry,
Into Great Britain make your entry;
Abjure the Pope, and take the oaths,
And you shall have meat, drink, and clothes. (George III & Epigrams) John Byrom, Four Epigrams on the Naturalization Bill (i)
50,951. If a man who turnip cries
Cry not when his father dies,
Is it not proof he’d rather
Have a turnip than his father? Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, Epigram I
50,952. I put my hat upon my head
And walked into the Strand
And there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand. ibid. Ballad ii
48,891. O nuclear wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I had my arms again. (Nuclear & Epigrams) Paul Dehn
48,892. Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch some heavy water,
They mixed it with the dairy milk
And killed my youngest daughter. (Nuclear & Epigrams) Paul Dehn
48,893. Flight Sergeant Foster flattened Gloucester
In a shower of rain.
(A Mr Hutton had pressed the wrong button
On the coast of Maine.) (Nuclear & Epigrams) Paul Dehn
48,894. Hark, the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn thing
Which, because of radiation,
Will be cared for by the nation. (Nuclear & Epigrams) Paul Dehn
52,359. God in His wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why. (Insects & Epigrams) Ogden Nash, The Fly