A Quote by Edwin Percy Whipple
Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment.
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She'd tell me how she'd handle the backhanded compliment by smiling and pretending she was receiving a genuine compliment all the while ignoring their attempt to be insulting. After all, it's the way an insult is received that makes it an insult. You can't really give offense unless someone takes it.
Being fierce is a compliment! It's not an insult.
We are searching for the same thing,” Stripey said. “How do you know?” Janco asked. “I read his mind.” The Sitian pointed to Ari. “Yours was too…chaotic. Too many useless thoughts to wade through.” A compliment or an insult? Janco guessed compliment and preened.
You should be thankful that dark colors suit you. Not everyone wears black well." "Why, Lady Olivia, is that a compliment?" "Not so much as a compliment to you as an insult to everyone else," she assured him. "Thanks heaven for that. I don't think I would know how to conduct myself in a world in which you offered compliments.
No compliment is ever sufficient and every insult, of course, is true.
Who doesn't love a compliment? But every compliment comes with a warning: Beware—Do Not Overuse. Go ahead, sniff your compliment. Take a little sip. But don't chew, don't swallow. If you do, you risk abandoning the good work that inspired the compliment in the first place. If that happens, maybe it was the compliment and not the job well done that you were aiming for all along.
In the philosophical dialect, a cynic takes an insult as a compliment since opposition is already his style.
I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.
My best friend recently told me that I was the most passionate person she's ever known. I don't know if that was a compliment or an insult, honestly.
It's really the tone that people use to convey things sometimes that can either become a compliment or an insult. It's not always what you are saying, it's about how you say it.
The irony is, when people now compliment my ability to make something out of nothing on the football field, my mom is the one who's been doing so in real life all along.
At my degree show, someone said, 'It's nice, but it's very feminine.' I said, thank you, taking it as a compliment, but they obviously meant it as an insult.
I used to get so many letters from students about the ending of 'Pro Femina.' So I had a stamp made that said 'irony, irony, irony' to put on a postcard and mail it back.
You take insult where none is intended, but if you will find insult where none is meant, then perhaps I should try harder to insult on purpose.
I gave her a smile that I hoped conveyed something like: Hey, you know I’m on your side. Gods are such jerks! But what can you do? Probably my expression actually conveyed: It’s not my fault! Please do not kill me!
Imitation is the sincerest form of insult.
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