 
|
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.
-Lord (George Gordon) Byron
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers
|
|
|
|
Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.
-Anatole France
|
|
|
|
Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.
-Victor Hugo
|
|
|
|
Irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it, but cherished by those who do. He who does not understand irony and has no ear for its whispering lacks of what might called the absolute beginning of the personal life. He lacks what at moments is indispensable for the personal life, lacks both the regeneration and rejuvenation, the cleaning baptism of irony that redeems the soul from having its life in finitude though living boldly and energetically in finitude.
-Soren Kierkegaard
|
|
|
|
Sentimental irony is a dog that bays at the moon while pissing on graves.
-Karl Kraus
|
|
|
|
An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
It's a traffic jam when you're already late
It's a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife.
-Alanis Morissette
Song Ironic
|
|
|
|
Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.
-Agnes Repplier
|
|
|
|
Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.
-Friedrich Von Schlegel
|
|
|
|
Irony is jesting behind hidden gravity.
-John Weiss
|
|
|
|
A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.
-Jessamyn West
|
|
|
|
Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment.
-Edwin P. Whipple
|
|
Books about Irony
