“My Dad wanted me to read The Divine Comedy but my Mom gave him a philippic for even suggesting it.”

“Next Friday sees the first anniversary of the inception of this desultory philippic.”

“The smallest concession to a different view must now be scotched by this master of the pulpit philippic and the courtroom defence.”

“They have also launched countless philippics against Labour's love of the target and the quota, and all manner of diktat from Whitehall.”

“I wonder if the new editor of the Daily Telegraph has any Irish blood and will tone down the paper's anti-euro, anti-EU philippics.”

“In exile in the West from 1974, his gloomy philippics and increasingly turgid prose aroused more bafflement than appreciation.”