63 Witty Satire Quotes

In a world that often takes itself too seriously, satire provides a refreshing lens through which we can view our realities with humor and skepticism. Whether it's highlighting the absurdity of societal norms or offering clever commentary on everyday life, witty satire quotes have long been a staple for those who appreciate the art of irony. In this collection, we've curated 63 of the most incisive and humorous satire quotes that are sure to provoke thought and laughter. So, prepare to dive into a world where cleverness meets humor, and where you'll find wisdom wrapped in wit.

1. “I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me.” - Matt Groening

2. “Welcome to Hell. Here's your accordion.” - Gary Larson

3. “Ah! good Sir! no Whores before Dinner, I beseech you."[Love's Last Shift]” - Colley Cibber

4. “Oh well," McWatt sang, "what the hell.” - Joesph Heller

5. “He has the memory of a convict, the balls of a fireman, and the eyesight of a housebreaker. When there is crime to fight, Landsman tears around Sitka like a man with his pant leg caught on a rocket. It's like there's a film score playing behind him, heavy on the castanets. The problem comes in the hours when he isn't working, when his thoughts start blowing out the open window of his brain like pages from the blotter. Sometimes it takes a heavy paperweight to pin them down.” - Michael Chabon

6. “I'm not scared of death, I just don't want to seek it out.” - Tommy Higgins

7. “If they projected the fact that they are dangerous any harder, there would be little puddles of "danger" on the floor around them. Look, it's "danger", don't step in it!” - Mercedes Lackey

8. “Most men are not wicked... They are sleep-walkers, not evil evildoers.” - Franz Kafka

9. “It was madness to leave without your useless shit. You came in with it, you left with it--that was how it worked. What would you use to clutter a new office with if not your useless shit? We could remember Old Brizz with this box of useless shit, shifting the box from arm to arm as he talked with the building guy. Of course, Old Brizz never had an office again. His useless shit really was useless. He had cause to leave his useless shit behind. But his was a rare case. All things considered, it was better to take your useless shit with you.” - Joshua Ferris

10. “Invisible things are the only realities.” - Edgar Allan Poe

11. “Right now, the economy is a whole lot like a fairly good-looking brain-dead chick in a persistent vegetative coma. You can't really wake her up, but there's things she's still good for.” - Cintra Wilson

12. “The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts; but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?” - William Makepeace Thackeray

13. “A Harvey Nicks chick with throwaway morals and a trustfund appetite.” - Saira Viola

14. “He was a boom boom shake the room " kind of guy” - Saira Viola

15. “But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.” - Johnathan Swift

16. “An Ass put on a Lion's skin and wentAbout the foreset with much merriment,Scaring the foolish beasts by brooks and rocks,Till at last he tried to scare the Fox. But Reynard, hearing from beneath the mane That Raucous voice so petulant and vain,Remarked. O' Ass, I too would run away,But that I know your old familiar bray'.That's just the way with asses, just the way.” - Aesop

17. “The Open Road goes to the used-car lot.” - Louis Simpson

18. “Jason Mashak’s SALTY AS A LIP is grounded in a voice patiently bridging the “steeples and ‘scrapers” of an inquisitive mind. The poems are at once syllogistic, hard-edged, satirical, reflective, and finally as playful as love notes. The true joy of this book is that we are deliciously engaged in a "pantomime of pleasure" which the language and imagery generously evoke.” - James Ragan

19. “Apologize: To lay the foundation for a future offence.” - Ambrose Bierce

20. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guards?” - Dan Brown

21. “You'll have to leave my meals on a tray outside the door because I'll beworking pretty late on the secret of making myself invisible, which may take me almost until eleven o'clock.” - S.J. Perelman

22. “Pops added,"you know, they say if you don't vote, you get the government you deserve.""And if you do, you never get the results you expected," (Katherine) replied.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

23. “I know a lie when I hear one.” - Adrian Mitchel

24. “(About a cookbook...)- What about this one? Maids of Honor?- Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor...but they ends up Tarts.” - Terry Pratchett

25. “To think or not to think? That is the new question.” - Nadina Boun

26. “American political culture quickly and always outpaces any attempt to satirize it.” - Glenn Greenwald

27. “I suppose that saves us from having to determine what to do with a butler who goes around killing people. It certainly reflects badly upon our domestic staff. Still, I shall miss him. There was a man who knew how to brew a good cup of tea.” - Gail Carriger

28. “If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and feathers and has been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue.” - William Makepeace Thackeray

29. “Dunia memang sudah semakin tua. Entah sudah berapa milyar kali dia mengelilingi matahari sampai membuat isinya berbolak-balik tidak karuan. Sampai manusia lupa bahwa apa yang seharusnya dikatakan dan dilakukan malah terlupa untuk dipraktikkan sendiri.” - Ahmad Fuady

30. “Justru karena cinta, kamu memelihara dirimu dan dirinya agar tetap mulia. Bila ia mendekat, tetaplah duduk. Karena itu yang menjaga emosi agar tak meletup. Bila ia menjauh, jangan dekati dia sebelum waktunya. Sabar itu jauh lebih istimewa. Atau kalau tak tahan lagi, segeralah datang ke rumah orang tuanya! Itu lebih mulia.” - Ahmad Fuady

31. “One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.” - Kurt Vonnegut

32. “Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.” - Vladimir Nabokov

33. “More militerry, less skools.” - Shepard Fairey

34. “The worst mistake a writer can make is to assume everyone has an imagination.” - Andrew McEwan

35. “The ultimate downfall of the computerized holographic receptionist was that there was no amount of flattery, flirtation or chocolate that could convince one to lie for you.” - Scott B. Pruden

36. “By the standards of a tourist strolling past looking for a quick lunch, the place was a dive. The sign on the window was small and easy to miss, and the antique feel of the place wasn't the prepackaged, old-shit-on-the-wall nostalgia that came with so many chain restaurants. The cafe was just old, and everything about it said old. But Jon liked it that way, if only because it kept the tourists away and spared him from hearing imported ignorance when there was plenty of local ignorance to go around.” - Scott B. Pruden

37. “Uh, excuse me, sir, I, uh, don't known how to uh, to uh, tell you this, but you were three minutes late. The schedule is a little, uh, bit off."He grinned sheepishly."That's ridiculous!" murmured the Ticktockman behind his mask. "Check your watch." And then he went into his office, going mrmee, mrmee, mrmee, mrmee.” - Harlan Ellison

38. “Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!” - Oscar Wilde

39. “...they say if you don't vote, you get the government you deserve, and if you do, you never get the results you expected.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

40. “Man is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight” - Mark Twain

41. “There is no point in poverty if it does not make a rich man, observing it, feel better.” - Tom Morrison

42. “After having so nobly disentangled themselves from the shackles of Parental Authority, by a Clandestine Marriage, they were determined never to forfeit the good opinion they had gained in the World, in so doing, by accepting any proposals of reconciliation that might be offered them by their Fathers – to their farther trial of their noble independence however they never were exposed.” - Jane Austen

43. “Our time was most delightfully spent, in mutual Protestations of Freindship, and in vows of unalterable Love, in which we were secure from being interrupted, by intruding and disagreeable Visistors, as Augustus and Sophia had on their first Entrance in the Neighbourhood, taken due care to inform the surrounding Families, that as their happiness centered wholly in themselves, they wished for no other society.” - Jane Austen

44. “Sophia shrieked and fainted on the ground – I screamed and instantly ran mad. We remained thus mutually deprived of our senses, some minutes, and on regaining them were deprived of them again. For an Hour and a Quarter did we continue in this unfortunate situation – Sophia fainting every moment and I running mad as often. At length a groan from the hapless Edward (who alone retained any share of life) restored us to ourselves.” - Jane Austen

45. “She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced.” - Jane Austen

46. “Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,And solid pudding against empty praise. Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play:How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry.” - Alexander Pope

47. “Eli Willard just looked at her for a long moment, and then he announced, 'Lady of the Lake strikes iceberg in mid-Atlantic; 215 drown. New York City fire destroys 700 buildings. Japanese earthquake kills 12,000. Worldwide cholera epidemic kills millions. Wages rise, but prices rise faster. Financial crash occurs on Van Buren's 36th day in office. Nation begins first great depression. Bank failures and closings spread like plague. 200,000 are unemployed. Business bankrupt; only pawnbrokers prosper. Van Buren declares ten-hour days on all federal jobs. There. Does that make you feel any better?” - Donald Harington

48. “By and large, the mission of any ghost is to offer humility. They point out what's important by mocking what is not.(Joshua Malina, Sports Night)” - Aaron Sorkin

49. “Probably went swimming and got eaten by a pineapple.” - Terry Pratchett

50. “Now, as I understand it, the bards were feared. They were respected, but more than that they were feared. If you were just some magician, if you'd pissed off some witch, then what's she gonna do, she's gonna put a curse on you, and what's gonna happen? Your hens are gonna lay funny, your milk's gonna go sour, maybe one of your kids is gonna get a hare-lip or something like that — no big deal. You piss off a bard, and forget about putting a curse on you, he might put a satire on you. And if he was a skilful bard, he puts a satire on you, it destroys you in the eyes of your community, it shows you up as ridiculous, lame, pathetic, worthless, in the eyes of your community, in the eyes of your family, in the eyes of your children, in the eyes of yourself, and if it's a particularly good bard, and he's written a particularly good satire, then three hundred years after you're dead, people are still gonna be laughing, at what a twat you were.” - Alan Moore

51. “When the conversation turns too quickly to films,I see it as a sign of weakness.” - Herman Koch

52. “The PM glanced a look of pure malevolence. A terrifying glimpse into what madness, ego and naked ambition it takes to lead a modern democracy.” - Alan Dean

53. “[On school uniforms] Don't these schools do enough damage making all these kids think alike, now they have to make them look alike too? It's not a new idea, either. I first saw it in old newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand because the narration was in German.” - George Carlin

54. “Bride, n. - A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.” - Ambrose Bierce

55. “The Boy will not be a failure. Mythili knows.She has seen the generations before.The boy will make it.As his father has said,he does not have the option of failure.He will crack atleast one entrance exam,and he will one day have a nice house in a suburb of San Francisco,or in a suburb of a suburb of San Francisco.He will find a cute Tamil Brahmin wife and make her produce two sweet children.He will drive a Toyota Corolla to work.And there,in the conference room of his office,he will tell his small team,with his hands stretched wide in a managerial way,'We must think out of the box” - Manu Joseph

56. “Because I want to have sex with him--and because that's sinful--I'm blushing and flushing furiously under his scrutinizing scrutiny.” - Jess C. Scott

57. “I tossed my shoulders and swaggered away, whistling with pleasure. In the gutter I saw a long cigaret butt. I picked it up without shame, lit it as I stood with one foot in the gutter, puffed it and exhaled toward the stars. I was an American, and goddamn proud of it.” - John Fante

58. “Something refused to come into focus in my thinking. Indistinctly, as though in a fog, shapes moved toward me and retreated just beyond cognition. But that getting a hold of things is the uncertainty. As the Tractatus says right at the beginning, “The world is everything that is the case.” It seemed as though the Mammy≈Divas® were just like Steve Jobs, trying to have reality bent to their own wills. Objectively, the iPhone was a muddle of mysticism and logic—breakable glass, non-ergonomic design, lousy battery life, lousy irreplaceable battery, lousy headphone jack, lousy virtual keyboard, lousy email, lousy memory, lousy lice, etc., etc, and an interface that you had to adapt to by pretending as an article of faith that no adaptation was required. The Mammy≈Divas® promised a seamless racial interface—eternal blackness ordered and majestic. They put a benign face on their lust for panoptic power. They promised to discipline and punish with pancakes.” - Jon Woodson

59. “Back in our apartment, lights out, The Professor emerged from beneath the bed." - from "The Professor Spends the Night," in issue 4 of Literary Orphans” - Joseph Patrick Pascale

60. “The old joke is that psychiatrists are doctors who can't stand the sight of blood. Maybe they can't stand it, but if they work where I work, they damn well better get used to it.At least surgeons and prizefighters get to wear gloves” - Mike Bartos

61. “Today’s generation didn’t want to watch ancient actors reciting the same tired lines. They wanted to see themselves reflected onscreen –rude, raw, entitled. These kids needed to believe that they themselves were only one daring, controversial act away from being up on that screen themselves. ” - Melissa Jo Peltier

62. “After we deal and heal...NOT A A SHRED OF EVIDENCE EXISTS THAT LIFE IS SERIOUS.....Jan Marshall” - Jan Marshall

63. “But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.” - Terry Pratchett