The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring.
Robertson Davies
» Robertson Davies - all quotes »
(on the current state of satire) Alas, irreverence has been subsumed by mere grossness, at least in the so-called mass media. What we have now--to quote myself at my most pretentious--is a nimiety of scurrility with a concomitant exiguity of taste. For example, the freedom (hooray!) to say almost anything you want on television about society's problems has been co-opted (alas!) by the freedom to talk instead about flatulence, orgasms, genitalia, masturbation, etc., etc., and to replace real comment with pop-culture references and so-called "adult" language. Irreverence is easy--what's hard is wit.
Tom Lehrer
Irreverence is the champion of liberty, if not its only defender.
Mark Twain
Irreverence is the champion of liberty, if not its only defender.
Samuel Langhorne (Mark Twain) Clemens
Bring your mouth and selective irreverence - We'll both see stars.
Brandon Boyd
"My father!" cried Tom, off his guard for the moment. "I trow he cannot speak his own so that any but the swine that kennel in the styes may tell his meaning; and as for learning of any sort soever—"
He looked up and encountered a solemn warning in my Lord St. John's eyes.
He stopped, blushed, then continued low and sadly: "Ah, my malady persecuteth me again, and my mind wandereth. I meant the King's grace no irreverence."Mark Twain
Davies, Robertson
Davies, Russell T
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