Daily Inspiration Quote by Cole Porter

A single wisecrack, and Porter punctures an entire era's sales pitch for masculinity. “Hair upon his chest” is the old vaudeville shorthand for virility: the visible proof that a man is a man, no further questions. Then comes the pivot - “but, sister, so has Lassie” - a punchline that turns that supposedly decisive “proof” into something canine, common, and faintly ridiculous. Porter’s gift is the way he uses one domestic image to collapse a whole hierarchy: if a collie can meet the standard, the standard was never that meaningful.

The address “sister” does a lot of quiet work. It’s conspiratorial and camp before “camp” was a mainstream vocabulary word, a wink to the listener who already knows the game is rigged. Porter isn’t arguing; he’s inviting you into the joke, positioning skepticism as sophistication. The line reads like it belongs in one of his songs where desire is present but policed, and humor becomes a smuggling route for what can’t be stated plainly.

Context matters: Porter wrote in a culture obsessed with gender roles while also thriving in theater spaces that trafficked in double meanings. As a gay man moving through high society and Broadway, he understood how “manliness” functioned as costume and credential. This quip doesn’t just mock macho posturing; it exposes how thin the evidence is, and how eagerly people accept it. The bite lands because it’s not moralizing. It’s laughter as analysis.