Wit Quotes - Page 23

• Commend a fool for his wit, or a rogue for his honesty and he will receive you into his favour.

  Henry Fielding

  Honesty, Rogues, Fool

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• A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Men, Hands, Fool

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• Reply to wit with gravity, and to gravity with wit.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Gravity

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• Your wits make others witty.

  Catherine the Great

  Witty, Tongue

  Letter to Voltaire. "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations". Book by Kate Loise Roberts, 1922.

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• A free man is he that, in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Men, Liberty, Able

  1651 Leviathan, pt.2, ch.21.

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• It seems to be saying perpetually; 'I am the end of the nineteenth century; I am glad they built me of iron; let me rust.' ... It is like a passing fool in a crowd of the University, a buffoon in the hall; for all the things in Paris has made, it alone has neither wits nor soul.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Engineering, Iron, Paris

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• But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men.

  Francis Bacon

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  Francis Bacon (1765). “The works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England, in five volumes”, p.81

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• Criticism is as often a trade as a science, requiring, as it does, more health than wit, more labour than capacity, more practice than genius.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Science, Practice, Criticism

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• To teach vain Wits that Science little known,
  T' admire Superior Sense, and doubt their own!

  Alexander Pope

  Science, Doubt, Littles

  Alexander Pope, “An Essay On Criticism”

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• If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.

  Francis Bacon

  Math, Men, Littles

  Francis Bacon, Basil Montagu (1821). “A critique of Bacon's "Novum Organum," by Basil Montagu, extracted from the Retrospective Review, 1821. Few MS. notes”, p.285

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• Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do; they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Anger, Heart, Understanding

  Walter Savage Landor (1856). “Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor”, p.242

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• ...the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

  Robert Kennedy

  Marriage, Country, Children

  Robert F. Kennedy, Edwin O. Guthman (1993). “RFK: collected speeches”, Viking Pr

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• These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people-amongst whom your life is passed-that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire-for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience.

  George Eliot

  Stupid, Compassion, People

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.129, Wordsworth Editions

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• Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

  Samuel Johnson

  Drinking, Food, Wine

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1866). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.220

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• We are given two of most of our body parts, either opposites or similarities, but not the tongue; except for my wife's which is forked.

  Kyle Bradley

  Opposites, Two, Wife

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• The more wit we have, the less satisfied we are with it.

  Jean le Rond d'Alembert

  Satisfied

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• There is one single fact that one may oppose to all the wit and argument of infidelity; namely, that no man ever repented of being a Christian on his death-bed.

  Hannah More

  Christian, Men, Infidelity

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 348), 1895.

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• I have had to change the game to one that is a match of wits rather than brawn to give myself a fighting chance.

  Todd Rogers

  Volleyball, Fighting, Games

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• Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives. The struggle for equality continues unabated, and the woman warrior who is armed with wit and courage will be among the first to celebrate victory.

  Maya Angelou

  Witty, Struggle, Warrior

  Maya Angelou (2011). “Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now”, p.6, Bantam

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• Man forgives woman anything save the wit to outwit him.

  Minna Antrim

  Wisdom, Women, Sea

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• Wit is a weapon. Jokes are a masculine way of inflicting superiority. But humor is the pursuit of a gentle grin, usually in solitude.

  Frank Muir

  Solitude, Weapons, Way

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• He who doesn't lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose.

  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Tongue, Certain, Loses

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• No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than any [constitutional] provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.

  Roger Brooke Taney

  Men, Liberty, Doctrine

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• [In the Royal Society, there] has been, a constant Resolution, to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver'd so many things, almost in an equal number of words. They have exacted from all their members, a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions; clear senses; a native easiness: bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness, as they can: and preferring the language of Artizans, Countrymen, and Merchants, before that, of Wits, or Scholars.

  Thomas Sprat

  Men, Numbers, Expression

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• Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant, without fault, is greater than the philosopher with many; for what is genius or courage without a heart?

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Inspirational, Art, Integrity

  "The Vicar of Wakefield".

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