Jest Quotes

• Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.

  Aristotle

  Humor, Examination, Tests

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• Jests that give pains are no jests.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Pain, Giving

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• A jest often decides matters of importance more effectively and happily than seriousness.

  Horace

  Humor, Matter, Importance

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• Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.

  William Shakespeare

  True Words

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• You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.

  David Foster Wallace

  Life, Thinking, People

  "Infinite Jest". Book by David Foster Wallace, February 1, 1996.

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• Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

  David Foster Wallace

  Bipolar, Secret, Different

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• Judge of a jest when you have done laughing.

  Robert Lloyd

  Laughing, Judging, Done

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• Listen closely as those around you speak; great truths are revealed in jest.

  Javan

  Speak

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• I love no woman, for love is a serious business, not a jest.

  Marie de France

  Love Is, Serious Business, Seriousness

  Marie de France (2015). “Medieval Lays and Legends of Marie de France”, p.125, Xist Publishing

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• Sweetest love, I do not go, For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show A fitter love for me; But since that I Must die at last, 'tis best, To use my self in jest Thus by feign'd deaths to die.

  John Donne

  Love, Death, Self

  'Songs and Sonnets' 'Song: Sweetest love, I do not go'

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• I'm from New York, I make kind of somewhat maybe lewd, at times - maybe some would say dirty - jokes. But in jest.

  Sarah Michelle Gellar

  New York, Dirty, Naughty

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• The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.

  David Foster Wallace

  Inspirational, Graduation, Freedom

  "David Foster Wallace's Kenyon Commencement Speech" by Carolyn Kellogg, latimesblogs.latimes.com. September 19, 2008.

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• I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

  David Foster Wallace

  Inspirational, Reading, Book

  David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.16, Hachette UK

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• Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

  William Shakespeare

  Song, Imagination, Gorges

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 5, sc. 1, l. [201]

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• I lose my respect for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when you speak earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sex, Men, Mystery

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.84, Courier Corporation

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• When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Thank You, Cutting, Army

  Barrack-Room Ballads (1892) "The Young British Soldier"

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• If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Character, Men, Failing

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook K 46, 1799.

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• War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Peace, War, Games

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.29, Wordsworth Editions

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• Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled; The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

  Pope Francis

  Fall, Errors, Judging

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• A lot of truth is said in jest.

  Eminem

  Truth Is, Said

  Song: Say What You Say, Album: The Eminem Show

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• The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophical, Animal, Squirrels

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.92, BookBaby

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• A friend must not be injured, even in jest.

  Publilius Syrus

  Friends, Injured

  "Maxims".

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• We never know we go when we are going- We jest and shut the Door- Fate-following-behind us bolts it- And we accost no more-.

  Emily Dickinson

  Death, Fate, Doors

  Emily Dickinson, Ralph William Franklin (1998). “The Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.1354, Harvard University Press

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• A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it.

  William Shakespeare

  Lying, Ears, Tongue

  'Love's Labour's Lost' (1595) act 5, sc. 2, l. [869]

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• God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I’m not crazy about.

  David Foster Wallace

  Crazy, Style, Laid Back

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