quotations about satire
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
VOLTAIRE
Lettre a Bordes, January 10, 1769
The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it's a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
"Do We Have to Fight the Battle for the Enlightenment all Over Again?"
Satirical writers and talkers are not half so clever as they think themselves, nor as they are thought to be. They do winnow the corn, it is true, but it is to feed upon the chaff. It is much easier for an ill-natured than for a good-natured man to be witty; but the most gifted men that I have known, have been the least addicted to depreciate either friends or foes.
RICHARD SHARP
Letters and Essays in Prose and Verse
The feathered arrow of satire has often been wet with the heart's blood of its victims.
ISAAC DISRAELI
attributed, Day's Collacon