I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope/ For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,/ For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith/ But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
[T.S. Eliot]

How is it that there is a Luther insult generator, a Shakespeare insult generator, but no *Nietzsche* insult generator? “Du geistig Plattfüssiger!” is an enormous keeper. (It doesn’t, alas, translate with any zing: in English it’s just “you mental flatfoot.” There must be more deeply ingrained prejudice against flatfootedness in Germany, because in German it sounds utterly crushing to me.)

But while we’re on insults: Flavorwire has a list of thirty great author-on-author insults.

One favorite:

15. William Faulkner on Ernest Hemingway

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

14. Ernest Hemingway on William Faulkner

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”