I've upped my standards. Now, up yours.

The line is a compact insult built on a bait-and-switch: the speaker begins with the self-improving cliché “I’ve upped my standards,” then pivots to the vulgar imperative “Now, up yours,” turning moral uplift into comic aggression. It satirizes the way “standards” talk can mask contempt or superiority, and it fits a tradition of deadpan, anti-establishment humor in which politeness and self-help rhetoric are undercut by blunt hostility. Attributed to Pat Paulsen, it aligns with his persona of mock-serious commentary that punctures public pieties, though the joke can also function more generally as a one-liner about boundaries and disdain.