quotations about wit
True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism
That wit is truly amiable, which gladdens and enlivens every thing, which shines with a lustre gentle, but not faint, and powerful, but not glaring.
JEREMIAH SEED
Discourses on Several Important Subjects
Let your wit rather serve you for a buckler to defend yourself, by a handsome reply, than the sword to wound others, though with ever so facetious reproach; remembering that a word cuts deeper than a sharper weapon, and the wound it makes is longer curing.
FRANCIS OSBORNE
Advice to a Son
Make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
The well of true wit is truth itself.
GEORGE MEREDITH
Diana of the Crossways
Every witticism is an inexact thought; that which is perfectly true is imperfectly witty.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans
Quick wit is lauded by friends and foes alike.
TRISTAN HOPPER
National Post, August 17, 2015
Wit is the clash and reconcilement of incongruities, the meeting of extremes round a corner.
LEIGH HUNT
Wit and Humour, Selected from the English Poets
The wittiest man is one who says a good thing, and appears not to know it.
JOHN VAN BUREN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Wit, without wisdom, is like a song without sense, it does not please long.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
Wit spares no one.
JEROME USTARIZ
attributed, Day's Collacon
Wit is the most rascally, contemptible, beggarly thing on the face of the earth.
COLLEY CIBBER
attributed, Encyclopædia of Quotations
I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry IV, Part II
Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
The Little Gypsy
My wit is sharper then the finest mustache, and when I walk among men I make truths ring like spurs.
EDMOND ROSTAND
Cyrano de Bergerac
Wit appreciates wit.
COELIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Wit malignantly employed is like a crackling fire that with every fresh blaze sends out sparks. Take care that you are not burnt.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
Ev'n wit's a burthen, when it talks too long.
JOHN DRYDEN
Sixth Satire of Juvenal
For we seldom admire the wit, when we dislike the man.
JEREMIAH SEED
Discourses on Several Important Subjects
The mere wit is only a human bauble. He is to life what bells are to horses--not expected to draw the load, but only to jingle while the horses draw.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit