Air Quote by William Cowper

For a young and presumptuous poet a disposition to write satires is one of the most dangerous he can encourage. It tempts him to…

— Robert Southey

SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In…

— Ambrose Bierce

Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless,…

— Molly Ivins

By rights, satire is a lonely and introspective occupation, for nobody can describe a fool to the life without much patient self-inspection.

— Frank Moore Colby

The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little - or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own…

— Anthony Trollope

Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind…

— Jonathan Swift

A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true.

— Anonymous

Satire of satire tends to be self-canceling, and deliberate shock tactics soon lose their ability to shock, especially when they're too deliberate.

— Herb Caen

Satire's nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral…

— E. L. Doctorow

Satire is a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended.

— John Dryden

Satire, whilst envy and ill-humor sway The mind of man, must always make her way; Nor to a bosom, with discretion fraught, Is all…

— Charles Churchill

Satire must always accompany any free society. It is an absolute necessity. Even in the most repressive medieval kingdoms, they understood the need for…

— Joe Randazzo