Witty Zingers From History’s Favorite Satirists

Satire is a broad concept that typically involves the use of humor to point a wry finger at the follies and vices of society and individuals. It has been with us in one form or another since antiquity, from the plays of ancient Rome to the late-night TV shows of John Oliver and Stephen Colbert.

Satire presents itself in various ways, whether through ridicule, irony, caricature, or straightforward derision. It’s a staple of literary fiction, seen in novels such as Don Quixote, Catch-22, and Animal Farm. Satire also finds its way into almost every medium and form of human communication, whether it’s The New Yorker’s Borowitz Report, the classic British sitcom Blackadder, or video games such as Grand Theft Auto V.

Writer Vladimir Nabokov once said, “Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.” Generally speaking, that’s true: Satire tends to have a level of social commentary that can be thought-provoking and potent. According to the newspaper columnist and humorist Molly Ivins, “Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.” As the following quotes show, the greatest satirists in history frequently used satire to attack the powerful. They also used it to critique society at large, and, at times, to poke fun at themselves.

François Rabelais was a French Renaissance writer and monk, known for writing bawdy songs as well as profound satire, the latter often targeting intellectual arrogance. This quote was the entirety of his one-sentence will.

Alexander Pope’s poems and satires made him plenty of high-profile enemies in Augustan England. Threats against him reached such a level that he began carrying two loaded pistols while walking his dogs.

Jonathan Swift is considered one of the greatest prose satirists in the English language. His most famous novel, Gulliver's Travels, is a masterful satire of human nature, bureaucracy, literary genres, religious squabbles, and more.

Voltaire was a prolific writer during the French Enlightenment. As an advocate of free speech and freedom of religion, his satires often took aim at the Roman Catholic Church and powerful French institutions.

Samuel Butler was one of the great English satirists. His most famous work, Erewhon (an anagram of “nowhere”), was a scathing satire on Victorian society, which he chose to publish anonymously. His other classic novel, The Way of All Flesh, was so critical of Victorian hypocrisy that he didn’t dare publish it during his lifetime.

Nikolai Gogol was a pioneer of surrealism and the grotesque in literature. At the same time, his works bravely satirized political corruption in the Russian Empire.

Benjamin Franklin was a highly accomplished man: founding father, writer, inventor, and philosopher. He was also a man of great wit, and wrote many satirical pieces for The Pennsylvania Gazette and other publications.

Mark Twain is often regarded as the greatest humorist in American literature. He used his well-honed wit to satirize a range of subjects, including religious hypocrisy, corrupt politicians, and imperialism. Sometimes he just enjoyed a bit of wordplay to make people laugh, such as when he wrote, “Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.”

Evelyn Waugh used his typically British dark humor to ridicule many aspects of English class and socioeconomic structures, most notably in novels such as Decline and Fall and Brideshead Revisited.

P.G. Wodehouse was one of the most popular humorists of the 20th century, in large part due to the two characters of Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves, who appear in a number of his novels and short stories. While the humor was often flippant, Wodehouse was not averse to satirizing aspects of British society.

With Catch-22, Joseph Heller arguably wrote the all-time greatest satire on war and bureaucracy. And in doing so, he introduced the term “catch-22” into the English language, which Merriam-Webster defines as “a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule.”

Aristophanes was a comic playwright of ancient Athens, and his satirical plays were the bane of many a powerful figure. His potent ridicule of prominent men provoked accusations of slander, but he carried on regardless.

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