quotations about wit
Truth, when witty, is the wittiest of all things.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE
Guesses at Truth
There was a monstrous deal of stupid quizzing and common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.
JANE AUSTEN
letter to Cassandra, April 21, 1805
Reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to any character but that of a wit.
CHARLES LAMB
"Confessions of a Drunkard", The Last Essays of Elia
Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Tempest
A fatalistic Irish wit is a famously effective coping mechanism.
JACK MCENENY
"McEneny waiting for words", Albany Times Union, March 11, 2017
Many would live by their Wits, but break for want of Stock.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1750
Wit is something more than a gymnastic trick of the intellect; true wit implies a beam of thought into the essence of a question, a flash that lights up a situation. Wit suggests the delicate but delightful play of a rapier in the hands of a master.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
Luckily, wit is contagious.
NICHOLAS CRONK
"Voltaire and the one-liner", Oxford University Press blog, March 10, 2017
A good wit ill employed is dangerous in a commonwealth.
DEMOSTHENES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting.
WASHINGTON IRVING
"The Christmas Dinner", Irving's Sketch Book
Wit, like poetry, is insusceptible of being constructed upon rules founded merely in reason. Like faith, it exists independent of reason, and sometimes in hostility to it.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
DOROTHY PARKER
The Paris Review, summer 1956
Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Love's Labour's Lost
Less judgment than wit, is more sail than ballast.
WILLIAM PENN
Fruits of Solitude
Great wits, like great beauties, look upon mere esteem as a flat insipid thing; nothing less than admiration will content them.
JEREMIAH SEED
Discourses on Several Important Subjects
Many, affecting wit beyond their power,
Have got to be a dear fool for an hour.
GEORGE HERBERT
The Temple
A man cannot please long who has only one kind of wit.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.
DANIEL DEFOE
A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of The True-born Englishman
Wit, like the Belly, if it be not fed,
Will starve the Members, and distract the Head.
DANIEL DEFOE
A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of The True-born Englishman
A Christian's wit is inoffensive light,
A beam that aids, but never grieves the sight.
WILLIAM COWPER
"Conversation", Poems