Source: The Time of My Life
“You know, Gilan, sarcasm isn't the lowest form of wit. It's not even wit at all.”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”
Variant: Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.
“It's funny how someone's perception of you can be formed without you even knowing it.”
Source: Dreamland (2000)
Michael Kennedy The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (1980) p. 593.
“The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement.”
Part 2, section 6.
The Cunning Man (1994)
Context: The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement.
“Rewards and punishment is the lowest form of education.”
Your Show Blows http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=120614&title=Your-Show-Blows/, October 18, 2004
Crossfire Appearance (2004)
“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.”
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
Context: Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage—the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.
