Favourite Shakespearean insults and put-downs

I went to see 'Timon Of Athens' yesterday. Literally the only thing I liked about the play was Apemantus. I felt particular joy when he trundled out this early "yo mama": "Thy mother's of my generation: what's she, if I be a dog?".

I also carry an extreme fondness for Falstaff's "Do thou amend thy face and I'll amend my life" from '1 Henry IV', and have it held firmly in reserve for any occasion where someone tells me to get a life.

Shakespeare came up with about a bazillion of these awesome lines. What are your favourites? Whether they're well-known classic insults, or ones that don't get so much press but are just as cutting as anything we could come up with today, I feel this would be a much more loving and warm website if we shared them. :3

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Updated On: 7/27/08 at 10:13 PM

It involves Shakespeare nerdery and insulting people, it totally counts. What about those people who quote Gaunt's "this sceptred isle" speech like he's saying "wow, England is so totally great!"? Context is everything. O_O

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go, thou, and fill another room in hell

I forget which play.

Could be better by replacing room with thread.

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Willie has so many good zingers:

He has not so much brain as ear wax- Troilus and Cressida

You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face - King Lear

All's Well That Ends Well:
If thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen.

Methinks't thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee.

BTW, there is a random insults generator on www.william-shakespeare.org.uk should you be in the mood to add to your list of handy insults e.g., You crusty botch of nature! and Thou base open-arsed tyrant!

NO CONTEST.

From Titus Andronicus:

CHIRON. Thou hast undone our mother.

AARON. Villain, I have done thy mother.