Auberon Waugh Quotes

The main objection to killing people as a punishment...is that killing people is wrong

There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible.

...judicial execution can never cancel or remove the atrocity it seeks to punish: it can only add a second atrocity to the original one.

The price of privilege is eternal vigilance.

Unless people are prepared to declare themselves your enemies you have to hunt around for them.

You should tell the truth as often as you can, but in such a way as people don't believe you or think that you're being funny.

My own attitude to the innumerable injustices of life has always been a philosophical one, especially when they have tended to operate in my favour.

I don't suppose there has been a moment in the world's history where more people felt themselves to be artists, of when less art was produced.

There are many Welsh who are taciturn, truthful, well formed, open minded, handsome and peaceful, even if no particular individual immediately springs to mind.

My own theory is that the spectacle of the homeless may be necessary to keep the rest of us on the straight and narrow...

Now that Mandela has been released from prison we can all admit what has been apparent, that he is not a Tembu tribesman, in fact he is not an African at all. He is quite obviously Chinese. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it makes those who persist in seeing him as a great African statesman look rather foolish.

In their quest for power and self-importance, to compensate for whatever feelings of social inadequacy or sexual insecurity, they (Politicians)are prepared to perpetrate something which is hard to distinguish from mass murder if they think they can get away with it...

It is impossible to be angry for very long with a man who wears a wig.

It is just a lonely certainty that we are right and everybody else wrong, which makes it worthwhile for us busy-bodies to go on making a nuisance of ourselves. Our job is to keep both the simple Philistine and the greedy rich in their places, to prevent them, in their stupidity and avarice, from destroying everything that is left.

At any rate it seems unlikely that there is any truth in the rumour as I have just this moment invented it.

Strange how much simple wisdom there is to be found in the deformed head and unprepossessing carcase of your typical London cabbie.

He looked like the victim of a forceps delivery.

When Glenda Jackson reveals that she has never been in a relationship with a man in which he hasn't raised his fists to her, I don't know whether this tells us more about the contemporary male or about Glenda Jackson.

Listening to the Gospel on Palm Sunday, it struck me that many people criticise Pontius Pilate for his role in the affair while letting the multitude go scot free. Pilate did what little he could to dissuade them from the extremely unpleasant course of action on which they were set, but the multitude kept shouting for a crucifixion. Pilate could not have done more without provoking a riot. The crucifixion when it happened was a victory for direct democracy against the effete, liberal paternalism of Pilate. If I am right, and the crucifixion be seen as an early victory for the principle of direct democracy, then it must follow...that good men should struggle to confound and frustrate the multitude whenever possible.

At the Serima Mission, in Victoria Province, I am shown around by an enchantingly pretty African nun called Sister Balbina...She cannot be more than 25, and has the most delightful figure. How poignant that she should have dedicated her life in this way. When we come to the bell tower, I ask her to climb up the ladder in front of me.It was rather a caddish request, I suppose, but I had often wondered. Black petticoats and pink knickers. To think I had to come all this way to find out.

He would insist, too, on being present at the weighing which occured at the beginning of every term. The whole school would be required to sit, naked, one by one on a red velvet weighing machine under the direction of the matron, while the headmaster smoked his pipe ruminatively above. He also insisted on supervising sixth form showers, which was slightly odd, as this as not the sort of task headmasters normally undertake...I have no reason to suppose there was anything in the slightest bit improper about his attendance on these occasions. Perhaps his interest was medical.

Rather to my surprise, I found myself genuinely indignant at the suggestion that murder was to be reintroduced as a means of political advancement for the first time since the Tudors, and even more indignant that the legal and political establishments in all their forms - which included, at that stage, the police - were going to cover up the whole episode. In the event, it turned out that my anxieties were unfounded, as Thorpe was totally innocent of all charges brought against him.

I remember also speaking to a reporter on Gay News who enquired about my attitude to Gay Dogs and reassuring him of my compassionate attitude to homosexuality among dogs, while secretly feeling they ought to be whipped.

We had to fill in forms which asked us whether we had ever been convicted of any crime. I hesitated about this. The NCO in charge, seeing me hesitate, explained kindly:'You write "No" in that line'.

Whatever happens, I must be back in Somerset by Dec 1 when Mrs Shirley Williams comes to address a rally of the Social Democratic party in Bridgwater. Suitably enough, this hellish woman has chosen the local Comprehensive School as her venue. Rotten eggs and cowpats can probably be acquired locally, but stink bombs and more sophisticated devices should be brought with you. Hoax bomb calls and maniacal threatening letters should be addressed to Bridgwater Police Headquarters. Tea and biscuits will be served at halftime.

There is an old story about the boy at Eton who committed suicide. The other boys in his house were gathered together and asked if any of them could suggest a reason for the tragedy. After a long silence a small boy in the front put up his hand: 'Could it have been the food, sir?

People enter politics or the Civil Service out of a desire to exert power and influence events; this, I maintain, is an illness. It's only when one realises that great administrators and leaders of men have all been at any rate slightly mad that one has a true understanding of history.

But if one can't believe the Daily Telegraph one might as well become an Existentialist.

Anyone in England who puts himself forward to be elected to a position of political power is almost bound to be socially or emotionally insecure, or criminally motivated, or mad.

I am much bigger than the average chicken, and furthermore I was armed with a rolling pin and kitchen knife. As a matter of fact I have always had the greatest contempt for chickens. They are so stupid that they probably don't even notice the difference when they die, but I must admit that this particular chicken put up a very good fight.

...the modern State's greatest single instrument of oppression, its murderous tax on drink...accounts for nearly all the miseries besetting our once-merry land; football hooliganism, colour prejudice, industrial unrest, cynicism about politicians; the list is endless.

Christmas has become a public affirmation of the power and benignity of the state, to which we all make obeisance in the sybolism of the breath test ceremony.

I try to believe everything I read in the newspapers, but I had difficulty with last week's account of the London vagrant who was found, after death, to be carrying £1,500 in small change in his socks. My reason for doubting the story is that I, too, like to carry small change in my socks, but I have found that with more that £15 or £20 worth it becomes impossible to walk.

I was shocked to read that Lord Ferrers, a Home Office minister, when booked for speeding and presented with a £40 fixed penalty with three penalty points, them wrote to the Suffolk police to thank them for catching him. There is a sickness in England. If his lordship appreciates punishment so much, it was unkind just to fine him. He should have been caned, with his trousers down, by the side of the road.

I should imagine that in my time I have eaten enough horses to provide a royal escort.

Two things make smoking a virtuous habit. In the first place, the smoker, by paying billions of pounds in tobacco duty, pretty well pays for the entire hospital service. In the second place, by dying on average five years younger that the non-smoker, the smoker reduces the burden of old age on society as a whole.

The role of journalists,’ wrote Auberon Waugh, ‘is to ridicule, humiliate and generally torment politicians, pour scorn on everything they propose to do and laugh at them when they do it.

I don't want 'constructive criticism'. I want praise.

Anyone who goes to law puts himself in the hands of an unscrupulous ring of bandits and thugs who milk both parties as hard as they can until one of them has to pay. If one allows for the stupidity and prejudice of judges, conceit and idleness of barristers, and diffuseness of English law, neither side can have a more certain chance of winning a legal action than on a tossed coin, which is a much cheaper way of settling things.

An unemployed electrician,whom I had been taunting with my reminder of how much richer I was, leaned forward and said:'What are your qualifications? I know exactly what your qualifications are.You bent over in the shower to pick up some soap at Eton and Harrow, like all the rest of them.

The rest of us learned the simple lesson - invaluable in a bureaucratic society - that there is no moral or practical obligation to tell the truth when filling in forms.