2010s, Audience Q&A following interview panel at Aalto University Center, 2012
“I’m all for offending people’s religion. I think it should be offended at every opportunity”
“Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.”
The Washington Post (26 January 1977)
“The secret of success is to offend the greatest number of people.”
As quoted in Days with Bernard Shaw (1949) by Stephen Winsten
1940s and later
“Offending people is better than no reaction at all.”
«The world according to Matt Bellamy» — Kerrang! (April 2006) http://mapage.noos.fr/maa3/press/interviews_kerrangAPR06.html
“Don’t go around offending people just because it can be done sitting down.”
Source: How to Become President (1940), Ch. 6 : How not to offend anybody
Context: As a well-known great man would have said if he had thought of it, “Don’t go around offending people just because it can be done sitting down.”
Interviewed on Hannity and Colmes, June 29 2000
Source: Here Are 13 Other Repugnant Comments Ted Nugent Should Apologize For, February 21, 2014, Eric, Hananoki, Timothy, Johnson, Media Matters for America,
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2014/02/21/here-are-13-other-repugnant-comments-ted-nugent/198174
1970s
Source: Philadelphia Enquirer (Oct. 12, 1975) Alana Goodman, “Joe Biden once said Democrats needed ‘a liberal George Wallace’” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/joe-biden-once-said-democrats-needed-a-liberal-george-wallace, Washington Examiner (Feb. 7, 2019)
