7 of John Adams' Greatest Insults [Funny, but True]

mental floss ^ | Mark Mancini

[SoFloFreeper]

A man whose wit was matched only by the looseness of his tongue, the combative John Adams quickly acquired a hefty reputation for articulate jabs and razor-sharp put-downs...

1. On Benjamin Franklin

“His whole life has been one continued insult to good manners and to decency.”

2. On Alexander Hamilton

“That bastard brat of a Scottish peddler! His ambition, his restlessness and all his grandiose schemes come, I'm convinced, from a superabundance of secretions, which he couldn't find enough whores to absorb!”

(Hamilton certainly wasn't above returning the fire.)

3. On Thomas Paine's Common Sense

“What a poor, ignorant, malicious, crapulous mass.”

(For more on their relationship, head here.)

4. On George Washington

“That Washington is not a scholar is certain. That he is too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station is equally beyond dispute.”

5. On the City of Philadelphia

“Phyladelphia [sic], with all its trade and wealth and regularity, is not Boston. The morals of our people are much better; their manners are more polite and agreeable... Our language is better, our taste is better, our persons are handsomer; our spirit is greater, our laws are wiser, our religion is better, our education is better. We exceed them in every thing, but in a market.”

6. On Thomas Jefferson

“His soul is poisoned with ambition.”

7. On John Dickinson

While working as a member of the American revolution's continental congress, Adams referred to one of his less-radical colleagues as “a piddling genius” in one of his letters—an insult which caused a good deal of uproar when the British intercepted and published the candid document. For a fictionalized account of the pair's tense relationship, check out this clip from HBO's 2008 John Adams miniseries:

[savedbygrace]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crapulous

[Walrus]

The fact that book is not “exhaustive” does not constitute corroboration of the reputed statements.

Sources for the quotes?