• @WoahWoah
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    853 minutes ago

    "After careful consideration, fuck the fuck off.

    Yours sincerely,

    Fuck you."

  • @[email protected]
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    142 hours ago

    Russell is one of the greats. But if you’re looking for a terse knockdown there’s always this classic from author Max Reger:

    I am in the smallest room of the house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.

  • @masquenox
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    62 hours ago

    A half-brick to the face is an equally elegant way of turning down a nazi.

  • @mEEGal
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    133 hours ago

    Dude’s a fookin legend !

    In the early 1900’s, he discovered a logical paradox that shattered mathematics for years, and drove brilliant people literally insane (one of them died in an asylum later on).

    He then tried to redefine mathematics based solely on logic; but he failed after a 1000-page manuscript… and that was only the first half of what he intended to publish.

    There are countless valuable quotes by him and anecdotes, he’s a very inspirational man.

  • @[email protected]
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    184 hours ago

    With all due respect, you are the antithesis of all that I consider human. With all due respect.

    By the way, if anyone else was curious, dude was a “Sir” due to an inherited title, not knighted for individual actions.

  • @wjrii
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    1145 hours ago

    This one is even better than Tolkien’s response to a German publisher in 1938, asking for proof of his ancestry, which may or may not have been sent, but tellingly there was no official translation of The Hobbit into German until 1957.

    Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject—which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

    Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

    Don’t fuck with posh and emotionally repressed Oxbridge motherfuckers when they realize they are finally on the right side of history. 🤣

  • @[email protected]
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    93 hours ago

    Wait a second, sir? Fascist? One moment while I check wikipedia…

    Nevermind, it turns out he just inherited the title, not as bad as being knighted

  • @[email protected]
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    124 hours ago

    Dear Sir,

    Thank you for your letter and for your enclosed pizza menu suggestions. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence about topping choices. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose culinary ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one’s own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you about pizza toppings, but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel fruit placement, compulsive sweetness, and the sadistic persecution of traditional savory flavors which has characterised the philosophy and practice of pineapple-on-pizza advocacy.

    I feel obliged to say that the gastronomic universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from a shared pizza between us.

    I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in Italian culinary experience and pizza-making achievement.

    Yours sincerely,

    What are the chances I had just sent something similar to someone advocating for pineapple on pizza?

    Jokes aside - dude was pretty badass:

    Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic philosophy.

    👑

  • @[email protected]
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    205 hours ago

    If you want to understand how to crush your foes with English, read Russell.

    It’s dated, and ancient compared to the shit we spew, but it soo pure and clear (when you get the ear for it).

    I am not a scholar, I can’t analyse prose or poetry, but his writing is cleansing and lights up the brain - especially if you have a fetish for reasonableness.

    • @[email protected]
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      16 minutes ago

      It’s dated, and ancient compared to the shit we spew, but it soo pure and clear (when you get the ear for it).

      I am not a scholar, I can’t analyse prose or poetry, but his writing is cleansing and lights up the brain - especially if you have a fetish for reasonableness.

      I know exactly what you mean and I’ve never quite had the words to describe this type of writing. It’s definitely old fashioned to our eyes, but it’s so dense with meaning. I felt the same reading some of the landmark SCOTUS decisions of the Warren court during the civil rights era.

    • NielsBohron
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      335 hours ago

      Hell, just getting 50% of high school students to understand Russell’s Teapot and the Burden of Proof would have a huge impact on political discourse in the US.

      • @TexasDrunk
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        246 minutes ago

        That’s his teapot I’ve been worshiping all these years without proof, only faith? Well that’s good to know!

  • Guy Dudeman
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    74 hours ago

    Alternatively, you can accept the lunch date and then punch them when they get there.

    • @Viking_Hippie
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      43 hours ago

      Mosley was not impervious to fire.

      Regrettable, the British people made the unforgivable mistake of not proving it BEFORE he died peacefully in his sleep aged 84.

  • @[email protected]
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    -93 hours ago

    Always with the walls of text these people… Just decline and be done with it! Nobody trying to grade your thesis over here ffs.

  • @TootSweet
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    -166 hours ago

    Needs more expletives.

    • JaggedRobotPubes
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      386 hours ago

      No it doesn’t, and that’s coming from me. You can check my comment history lol.

      It’s beautiful to also see how well it holds together in the most gentlemanly and old-fashioned prose.

      • snooggums
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        135 hours ago

        It doesn’t skirt around the issue or go for subtlety either, just straight up states that fascism is violent oppression. I wouldn’t even call it gentlemanly, just formal and direct.

      • Track_Shovel
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        55 hours ago

        I’m of two minds when it comes to chewing out someone. On one hand, I have literally torn strips off dozer operators, and can cuss with the best of them. I love well put together strings of expletives, and think the more creative you are with them, funnier they are and the more they show intellect rather than just ‘huh huh fucking cunt’.

        On the other side, I see the value of being overly polite but cutting. There’s something personal about it. You’re beautifully insulted and it feels like you disappointed your parents.

        I generally tend to opt for the first option and call people slack-jawed pigeon fuckers.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      44 hours ago

      Nah. You have to follow your own style.

      Bertrand Russel had his own style, and it’s complete, formal, heartfelt and true. If he tried to add a bunch of cursing to it, it would become inauthentic, just as it would if someone whose natural mode is to start cursing and punching decided to try to talk like Bertrand Russel. Everyone’s got their voice.

      For an equally complete, formal, heartfelt and true example which does include cursing, see:

      https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cleveland-browns-letters/

    • snooggums
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      95 hours ago

      Nah, it is drectly pointing out the worst parts of fascism and saying that there would be no reason to meet since Bertrand is opposed to those things. Adding in profanity, which I am a huge fan of, would not drive the point home if the direct statements are not clear already.

      Now if the fascist sent a follow up asking to reconsider I would hope the reply would be “I told you to fuck off already”