Auberon Waugh Quotes

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.

Politicians can forgive almost anything in the way of abuse; they can forgive subversion, revolution, being contradicted, exposed as liars, even ridiculed, but they can never forgive being ignored.

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.

Politics, as I never tire of saying, is for social and emotional misfits, handicapped folk, those with a grudge. The purpose of politics is to help them overcome these feelings of inferiority and compensate for their personal inadequacies in the pursuit of power.

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

In England, we have a curious institution called the Church of England. Its strength has always been in the fact that on any moral or political issue it can produce such a wide divergence of opinion that nobody
from the Pope to Mao Tse-tung
can say with any confidence that he is not an Anglican. Its weaknesses are that nobody pays much attention to it and very few people attend its functions.

Generally speaking, the best people nowadays go into journalism, the second best into business, the rubbish into politics and the shits into law

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.

It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.

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.

He looked like the victim of a forceps delivery.

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.

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.

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

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

History, having destroyed the religion as the opium of the people, now requires that they be given a taste of the real stuff.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

Anyone might become homosexual after seeing Glenda Jackson naked.

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

The two sides of industry have traditionally always regarded each other in Britain with the greatest possible loathing, mistrust and contempt. They are both absolutely right.

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

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.

The price of privilege is eternal vigilance.

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.