"Poets, like whores, are only hated by each other"
About this Quote
Wycherley’s line is Restoration acid: a lewd joke that doubles as a status report on a literary marketplace where everyone is selling something and everyone knows it. Pairing “poets” with “whores” isn’t just cheap provocation (though Wycherley never passes on that). It’s a claim about professional jealousy in a culture that treats art as both performance and transaction. If your livelihood depends on attention, patronage, and reputation, your real competitors aren’t the moralists condemning you from the pulpit; they’re the people working the same room.
The punch is in “only.” Wycherley flips the expected hierarchy. You’d think poets are hated by censors, prudes, or the state; sex workers by polite society. Instead he insists the sharpest contempt is internal, generated by proximity: poets policing poets, whores policing whores. The insult implies a shared logic of scarcity: limited patrons, limited audiences, limited coin. Moral disgust becomes a secondary force compared to career anxiety.
The subtext is also defensive. By conceding the “whore” slur and then redirecting the hatred inward, Wycherley shrugs off external judgment as predictable theater. Outsiders may sneer, but insiders are the ones who can actually damage you: through satire, gossip, or withholding praise. Coming from a dramatist who thrived on rivalry and reputation in the Restoration stage world, it reads like a worldly aside from someone who has watched artists turn on one another faster than any censor can. It’s cynicism dressed as epigram: everyone’s for sale, and the fiercest buyers are your peers.
The punch is in “only.” Wycherley flips the expected hierarchy. You’d think poets are hated by censors, prudes, or the state; sex workers by polite society. Instead he insists the sharpest contempt is internal, generated by proximity: poets policing poets, whores policing whores. The insult implies a shared logic of scarcity: limited patrons, limited audiences, limited coin. Moral disgust becomes a secondary force compared to career anxiety.
The subtext is also defensive. By conceding the “whore” slur and then redirecting the hatred inward, Wycherley shrugs off external judgment as predictable theater. Outsiders may sneer, but insiders are the ones who can actually damage you: through satire, gossip, or withholding praise. Coming from a dramatist who thrived on rivalry and reputation in the Restoration stage world, it reads like a worldly aside from someone who has watched artists turn on one another faster than any censor can. It’s cynicism dressed as epigram: everyone’s for sale, and the fiercest buyers are your peers.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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