Definition of Irony at BrainyQuote.com

Definition of Irony

Irony

Made or consisting of iron; partaking of iron; iron; as, irony chains; irony particles.

Resembling iron taste, hardness, or other physical property.

Dissimulation; ignorance feigned for the purpose of confounding or provoking an antagonist.

A sort of humor, ridicule, or light sarcasm, which adopts a mode of speech the meaning of which is contrary to the literal sense of the words.

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Irony Quotations

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.
Frederick Douglass

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert A. Heinlein

Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.
E. O. Wilson

A tragic irony of life is that we so often achieve success or financial independence after the chief reason for which we sought it has passed away.
Ellen Glasgow

Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony.
Charles Baudelaire

The accident was a horrible thing - but that horrible thing made Chris, at the end of his life, Superman. It's a happy irony if there is such a thing. I'm proud to have known him.
Morgan Freeman

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.
Samuel Butler

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.
Anatole France

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
W. Somerset Maugham

The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates.
David Foster Wallace

The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, "then" what do we do?
David Foster Wallace

I love Sell Out, I think it's great. I love the jingles. The whole thing as an album is a wonderful piece of work. The cover. Everything about it. It's got humor, great songs, irony.
Roger Daltrey

I was not interested in irony; I wanted to emphasize the primacy of the idea in making art.
Sol LeWitt

You know the great irony is that people think you have to have money to enjoy fine food, which is a shame.
Ted Allen

The irony of that is, what makes it kind of ironic, is when you do become successful as a professional athlete in particular, a lot of the young children who are emulating these stars do have a different perspective.
Frank Shorter

But the irony is that because the band isn't the focus any more, it allows me the chance to enjoy being a member of Def Leppard much more.
Rick Allen

Yes, of course that's true but you know, the irony of all that is that before the accident, I'd pretty much lost interest in playing drums.
Rick Allen

Sentimental irony is a dog that bays at the moon while pissing on graves.
Karl Kraus

Listen: our culture is saturated with irony whether we know it or not.
Barbara Kruger

The irony of our social group is that so often everyone feels this, but there's no company whatsoever in that feeling. Think of Pound's great emphasis, the way out is via the door.
Robert Creeley

I love the irony. I'm perceived as being really young and yet I have the clinical condition of an old man.
Michael J. Fox

Brain research tells us that only twenty percent of human beings have a sense of irony, which means that eighty percent of the world takes everything at face value.
Doug Coupland

I always thought the biggest failing of Americans was their lack of irony. They are very serious there! Naturally, there are exceptions... the Jewish, Italian, and Irish humor of the East Coast.
Colin Firth

Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it.
Charles Lamb

Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge.
Mason Cooley

A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.
Jessamyn West

I think that you can fall into bad habits with comedy... It's a tightrope to stay true to the character, true to the irony, and allow the irony to happen.
Ben Kingsley

We should try to understand our innermost needs. We shouldn't use irony to reduce their power.
Manuel Puig

More Irony Quotations

Irony Translations

irony in Dutch is ironie
irony in French is ironie
irony in German is Ironie
irony in Italian is ironia
irony in Norwegian is ironi
irony in Swedish is ironin, ironi

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