Not jokes per se, but these glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words, not to mention waving middle fingers.

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, “If you were my husband I’d give you poison,” and he said, “If you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.” “That depends, Sir,” said Disraeli, “on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”

“He had delusions of adequacy.” – Walter Kerr

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” – Winston Churchill

“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” – Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” – Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” – William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” – Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” – Moses Hadas

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” – Abraham Lincoln

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” – Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” – Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend…. if you have one.” – George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.” – Winston Churchill, in response.

“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” – Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”- John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” – Irvin S. Cobb

“He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.” – Samuel Johnson

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” – Paul Keating

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.” Jack E. Leonard

“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.” – Robert Redford (one flash & it’s gone. ha)

“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.” – Thomas Brackett Reed

“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” – Charles, Count Talleyrand

“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.” – Forrest Tucker

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?” – Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” – Mae West

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” – Oscar Wilde

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.” – Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” – Billy Wilder

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening But this wasn’t it.” – Groucho Marx

What is the difference between a brown nose and a kiss-bum?

Depth perception.

Wanna here a clean joke? Joey took a bath with bubbles.

Wanna here a dirty joke? Bubbles was the girl next door!

A professor is sent to darkest Africa to live with a primitive tribe. He spends years with them, teaching them reading, writing, math and science.

One day the wife of the tribe’s chief gives birth to a white child. The tribe is shocked, and the chief pulls the professor aside and says, “Look here! You’re the only white man we’ve ever seen and this woman gives birth to a white child. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened!”

The professor replied, “No, Chief. You’re mistaken. What you have here is a natural occurrence, what we in the civilized world call an albino! Look at that field over there. All of the sheep are white except for one black one. Nature does this on occasion.”

The chief was silent for a moment, then said, “Tell you what. You don’t say anything more about that sheep and I won’t say anything more about that white child.”

Three guys are involved in a terrible car crash. They all die, and, due to various bad decision made in life, they all go to Hell. When the three chums meet the head honcho, he explains their first torture. “I’m going to remove your collective male reproductive organes. The method in which I’m going to remove them all depends upon the profession of your Father. For instance, your Father was a lumberjack, so I’m going to cut off your male reproductive organ with this axe.”

The Devil reveals a very rusty, old looking axe, nails the mans male reproductive organ to the wall, and gleefully hacks away until the sobbing mans member was completly severed. Satan looked at the next man, and said “Your Father was a blacksmith, so I’m going to hammer your male reproductive organ until it drops off.”

The brutality that followed was nothing short of horrifiying. After the grizzly deed was done, the Devil turned to the third man, who, bizzarly, was doubled up in laughter. “Why are you laughing?” The Devil asked the man.

“Didn’t you see what happened to your friends? You should be quivering in fear, not… Laughing!”

The man stifled his laughter just long enough to reply thus: “My father was a popsicle taster!”

This song, while not strictly speaking a joke, is close enough, I think, to fit the guidelines.

The Arisocrats. Sorry, there are just too many versions of it, I couldn’t just pick one.

A taxi pbumenger tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him a question. The driver screamed, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, went up on the footpath, and stopped centimeters from a shop window.

For a second everything went quiet in the cab, then the driver said, “Look mate, don’t ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me!” The pbumenger apologized and said, “I didn’t realize that a little tap would scare you so much. “The driver replied, “Sorry, it’s not really your fault. Today is my first day as a cab driver. I’ve been driving a funeral van for the last 25 years.”

———

A stranger was seated next to Little Johnny on the plane when the stranger turned to the Little Johnny and said, “Let’s talk. I’ve heard that flights will go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow pbumenger.”

Little Johnny, who had just opened his book, closed it slowly, and said to the stranger, “What would you like to discuss?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the stranger. “How about nuclear power?”

“OK,” said Little Johnny. “That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. “A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat grbum. The same stuff. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grbum. Why do you suppose that is?”

“Jeez,” said the stranger. “I have no idea.”

“Well, then,” said Little Johnny, “How is it that you feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don’t know ****?”

———

After being with her all evening, the man couldn’t take another minute with his blind date. Earlier, he had secretly arranged to have a friend call him to the phone so he would have an excuse to leave if something like this happened.

When he returned to the table, he lowered his eyes, put on a grim expression and said, “I have some bad news. My grandfather just died.”

“Thank heavens,” his date replied. “If yours hadn’t, mine would have had to!”

———

For decades, two heroic statues, one male and one female, faced each other in a city park, until one day an angel came down from heaven.

“You’ve been such exemplary statues,” he announced to them, “That I’m going to give you a special gift. I’m going to bring you both to life for thirty minutes, in which you can do anything you want.” And with a clap of his hands, the angel brought the statues to life.

The two approached each other a bit shyly, but soon dashed for the bushes, from which shortly emerged a good deal of giggling, laughter, and shaking of branches. Fifteen minutes later, the two statues emerged from the bushes, wide grins on their faces.

“You still have fifteen more minutes,” said the angel, winking at them.

Grinning even more widely the female statue turned to the male statue and said, “Great! Only this time you hold the pigeon down and I’ll crap on it’s head.”

———

A guy walks into a bar with his pet monkey. He orders a drink and while he’s drinking, the monkey starts jumping all over the place. The monkey grabs some olives off the bar and eats them, then grabs some sliced limes and eats them,then jumps up on the pool table, grabs the cue ball, sticks it in his mouth and swallows it whole.

The bartender screams at the guy, “Did you see what your monkey just did?” The guy says, “No, what?” “He just ate the cue ball off my pool table – whole!” says the bartender. “Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me,” replies the patron. “He eats everything in sight, the little twerp. I’ll pay for the cue ball and stuff.” He finishes his drink, pays his bill, and leaves. Two weeks later he’s in the bar again, and he has his monkey with him. He orders a drink and the monkey starts running around the bar again.

While the man is drinking, the monkey finds a maraschino cherry on the bar. He grabs it, sticks it up his bum, pulls it out, and eats it. The bartender is disgusted. “Did you see what your monkey did now?” “Now what?” asks the patron. “Well, he stuck a maraschino cherry up his bum, then pulled it out and ate it!” says the barkeeper.

“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me,” replies the patron. “He still eats everything in sight, but ever since he ate that damn cue ball he measures everything first!”

———

A new guy in town walks into a bar and reads a sign that hangs over the bar… FREE BEER! FREE BEER FOR THE PERSON WHO CAN Pbum THE TEST! So the guy asks the bartender what the test is.

Bartender replies “Well, first you have to drink that whole gallon of pepper tequila, the WHOLE thing at once and you can’t make a face while doing it. Second, there’s a ‘gator out back with a sore tooth…you have to remove it with your bare hands. Third, there’s a woman up-stairs who’s never had an orgasm. You gotta make things right for her.” The guy says, “Well, as much as I would love free beer, I won’t do it. You have to be nuts to drink a gallon of pepper tequila and then get crazier from there.

Well, as time goes on and the man drinks a few, he asks, “Wherez zat teeqeelah?”

He grabs the gallon of tequilla with both hands, and downs it with a big slurp and tears streaming down his face. Next, he staggers out back and soon all the people inside hear the most frightening roaring and thumping, then silence. The man staggers back into the bar, his shirt ripped and big scratches all over his body.

“Now” he says “Where’s that woman with the sore tooth?”

———

Two drunks had just gotten thrown out of the bar and are walking down the street when they come across this dog, sitting on the curb, licking his balls. They stand there watching and after a while one of them says, ” I sure wish I could do that!”

The other one looks at him and says, “Well, I think I’d pet him first”.

———

One night, a police officer was stalking out a particularly rowdy bar for possible violations of the driving under the influence laws. At closing time, he saw a fellow stumble out of the bar, trip on the curb, and try his keys on five different cars before he found his. Then, sat in the front seat fumbling around with his keys for several minutes. Everyone left the bar and drove off. Finally, he started his engine and began to pull away.

The police officer was waiting for him. He stopped the driver, read him his rights and administered the Breathalyzer test. The results showed a reading of 0.0. The puzzled officer demanded to know how that could be. The driver replied, “Tonight, I’m the Designated Decoy.”

———

One sunny day in Ireland, two men were sitting in a pub, drinking some Guinness, when one turns to the other and says “You see that man over there? He looks just like me! I think I’m gonna go over there and talk to him.” So, he goes over to the man and taps him on the shoulder. “Excuse me sir,” he starts, “but I noticed you look just like me!” The second man turns around and says “Yeah, I noticed the same thing, where you from?”, “I’m from Dublin”, second man stunned says, “Me too! What street do you live on?”, “McCarthy street”, second man replies, “Me too! What number is it?”, the first man announces, “162”, second man shocked says, “Me too! What are your parents names?”, first man replies, “Connor and Shannon”, second man awestruck says, “Mine too! This is unbelievable!”

So, they buy some more Guinness and they’re talking some more when the bartenders change shifts. The new bartender comes in and goes up to the other bartender and asks “What’s new today?” “Oh, the Murphy twins are drunk again.”

———

The local bar was so sure that its bartender was the strongest man around that they offered a standing $1000 bet. The bartender would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran into a glbum, and hand the lemon to a patron. Anyone who could squeeze one more drop of juice out would win the money. Many people had tried over time (weight-lifters, longshoremen, etc.) but nobody could do it.

One day this scrawny little man came into the bar, wearing thick glbumes and a polyester suit, and said in a tiny squeaky voice ” I’d like to try the bet” After the laughter had died down, the bartender said OK, grabbed a lemon,

and squeezed away. Then he handed the wrinkled remains of the rind to the little man.

But the crowd’s laughter turned to total silence as the man clenched his fist around the lemon and six drops fell into the glbum. As the crowd cheered, the bartender paid the $1000, and asked the little man “what do you do for a living? Are you a lumberjack, a weight-lifter, or what?” The man replied “I work for the IRS.”

———

A guy walks into a bar with a dog under his arm, puts the dog on the bar and announces that the dog can talk and that he has $100 he’s willing to bet anyone who says he can’t. The bartender quickly takes the bet and the owner looks at the dog and asks, “What’s the thing on top of this building which keeps the rain from coming inside?” The dog answers “ROOF.” The bartender says, “Who are you kidding? I’m not paying.” The dogs owner says, “How about double or nothing and I’ll ask him something else”. The bartender agrees and the owner turns to the dog and asks, “Who was the greatest ballplayer of all time”. The dog answers with a muffled “RUTH.” With that the bartender picks them both up and throws them out the door. As they bounce on the sidewalk the dog looks at his owner and says “DiMaggio?”.

———

A preacher goes into a bar and says “Anybody who wants to go to heaven, stand up.” Everybody stands up except for a drunk in the corner. The preacher says “My son, don’t you want to go to heaven when you die?” The drunk says “When I die? Sure. I thought you were taking a load up now.”

———

A woman had two female parrots who were always yelling, “We’re prostitutes, wanna have a little fun?” One day, she was talking to her Preacher about this. He said he had two male parrots and all they did was read the Bible. He thought perhaps they would be a good influence on the two females. So they put the four parrots together. So, the females yelled at the male parrots, “We’re prostitutes, wanna have a little fun?” One male parrot said to the other, “Put the Bibles away! We’ve made it to heaven!”

———

A sailor and a priest were playing golf. The sailor took his first shot missed and said, “****, I missed.” Surprised, the priest replied, “Don�t use that kind of language or god will punish you.” The sailor took aim and hit his shot second shot. Again he missed and under his breath the said, “I ****�n missed again.” The priest overheard and replied, “My son, please don�t use that language or god will punish you.” The sailor took his third shot and once again he couldn�t help mutter, “Oh ****�” The priest said, “That�s it god will certainly punish you.” Suddenly a bolt of lightning came down and killed the priest. In the distance a deep voice said, “****, I Missed”.

———

A preacher wanted to raise money for his church and on being told that there was a fortune in horse racing, decided to purchase one and enter it in the races. However at the local auction, the going price for horses was so high that he ended up buying a donkey instead. He figured that since he had it, he might as well go ahead and enter it in the races. To his surprise, the donkey came in third! The next day the local paper carried this headline: �PREACHER’S bum SHOWS�

The preacher was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again, and this time it won. The paper read: �PREACHER’S bum OUT IN FRONT� The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the preacher not to enter the donkey in another race. The paper headline read: �BISHOP SCRATCHES PREACHER’S bum�

This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the preacher to get rid of the donkey. The preacher decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The paper headline the next day read: �NUN HAS BEST bum IN TOWN� The Bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10.00. Next day the headline read: �NUN SELLS bum FOR $10.00�

This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey, lead it to the plains where it could run wild and free. Next day, the headline in the paper read: �NUN ANNOUNCES HER bum IS WILD AND FREE�. The Bishop was buried the next day.

———

A drunk man who smelled like beer sat down on a subway seat next to a priest. The man’s tie was stained, his face was plastered with red lipstick, and a half empty bottle of gin was sticking out of his torn coat pocket. He opened his newspaper and began reading. After a few minutes the man turned to the priest and asked,” Say, Father, what causes arthritis?”

“My Son, it’s caused by loose living, being with cheap, wicked women, too much alcohol, a contempt for your fellow man, sleeping around with prostitutes and lack of bath.” “Well, I’ll be damned,” the drunk muttered, returning to his paper. The priest, thinking about what he had said, nudged the man and apologized. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to come on so strong. How long have you had arthritis?” “I don’t have it, Father. I was just reading here that the Pope does.”

During a big fire downtown the firemen were having a bit of trouble.

A woman was stuck on the fourth floor with her baby. The fire fighters

instructed her to toss the child out the window, under which they had

placed a net, but the mother refused.

Things looked grim until a tall, well-built man burst through the

crowd and shouted to the women. He said that he was a professional

football player and that he could catch the baby safely. After a few

minutes more of rebumurances by the man, the mother finally let the

child drop.

The football player made a breathtaking catch, and everybody cheered.

At that moment the man suddenly raised the child high in the air,

spiked it on the ground and screamed, “Touchdown!”

And just for good measure, a limerick.

A randy marsupial named Reeves

Spent some time with the whores ‘tween their knees

When they’d asked him for money

He’d say “Listen honey

A koala eats bushes and leaves.”