Wit Quotes - Page 31

• How now, wit! Whither wander you?

  William Shakespeare

  Spirit, Wander

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 1, sc. 2, l. [60]

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• Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention; there are many books that owe their success to two things; good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Memories, Book, Writing

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.160

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• Take a portion of wit, And fashion it fit, Like a needle, with point and with eye: A point that can wound, An eye to look round, And at folly or vice let it fly

  Jacques Barzun

  Fashion, Eye, Vices

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• The quality of wit inspires more admiration than confidence

  George Santayana

  Confidence, Inspire, Quality

  George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.154, Courier Corporation

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• Wit thou well that I will not live long after thy days.

  Thomas Malory

  Mistake, Long, Wells

  Sir Thomas Malory (1968). “King Arthur and His Knights: Selected Tales”

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• Folks with their wits about them knew that advertisements were just a pack of lies - you had only to look at the claims of patent medicines!

  Frances Parkinson Keyes

  Lying, Medicine, Patents

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• Society develops wit, but its contemplation alone forms genius.

  Madame de Stael

  Genius, Contemplation, Form

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• By the consultation of books, whether of dead or living authors, many temptations to petulance and opposition, which occur in oral conferences, are avoided. An author cannot obtrude his service unasked, nor can be often suspected of any malignant intention to insult his readers with his knowledge or his wit. Yet so prevalent is the habit of comparing ourselves with others, while they remain within the reach of our passions, that books are seldom read with complete impartiality, but by those from whom the writer is placed at such a distance that his life or death is indifferent.

  Samuel Johnson

  Distance, Book, Passion

  "The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius".

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• I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment: but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder-how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's movements a matter in which I had any cause to take vital interest.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Disappointment, Mistake, Order

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.136, Penguin

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• One pits his wits against apparently inscrutable nature, wooing her with ardor but nature is blind justice who cannot recognize personal identity.

  Charles Brenton Huggins

  Justice, Identity, Pits

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• Imagine sitting down to an eight ounce steak, and then, imagine the room filled wit 45 to 50 people with empty bowls...For the feed cost of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a cup pf cooked cereal grains.

  Frances Moore Lappé

  Animal, Eight, Cereal

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• I knew the man up until our divorce - after that I didn't know the man, but it didn't stop me caring about him and worrying because of the complete change that I saw in him. He'd lost his sense of humour and he got aggressive; he wasn't for the world any more, he was just for Yoko. Before that he opened his arms and embraced the world with his wit and humour - afterwards he was a completely different kind of person.

  Cynthia Lennon

  Divorce, Caring, Men

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• Roscoe was spiritually illegal, a bootlegger of the soul, a mythic creature made of words and wit and wild deeds and boundless memory.

  William Kennedy

  Memories, Soul, Deeds

  William Kennedy (2011). “Roscoe”, p.73, Simon and Schuster

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• Anonymity is an abused privilege, abused most by people who mistake vitriol for wisdom and cynicism for wit.

  Danny Wallace

  Mistake, People, Privilege

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• What a measly epitaph that would make: 'They saw it coming, but hadn't the wit to stop it happening.'

  Sara Parkin

  Saws, Epitaph, Happenings

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• For this my mother wrapped me warm,
  And called me home against the storm,
  And coaxed my infant nights to quiet,
  And gave me roughage in my diet,
  And tucked me in my bed at eight,
  And clipped my hair, and marked my weight,
  And watched me as I sat and stood:
  That I might grow to womanhood
  To hear a whistle and drop my wits
  And break my heart to clattering bits.

  Dorothy Parker

  Broken Heart, Mother, Home

  Dorothy Parker (1992). “The Sayings of Dorothy Parker”, Duckbacks

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• A heartwarming tale of Christmas past that's chock full of all the wit and hilarity we admire in America's favorite humorist--Mark Twain. Carlo DeVito brings us back one hundred years to a magical time in Twain's family life, revealing a house that's brimming with love and laughter, as well as the profound heartbreaks of life. A Mark Twain Christmas only deepens our understanding and respect for both the man and his work.

  Gilbert King

  Laughter, Past, Men

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• Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them.

  Michel Faber

  Watches, Needs, Steps

  "The Crimson Petal and the White". Book by Michel Faber, 2002.

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• Lysley Tenorio is a writer of sly wit and lively invention—these are stories bursting with wonders (from monster movies and leper colonies, to faith-healers and superheroes)—but most wondrous of all is his intimate sense of character. Each story is a confession of love betrayed, told with a mournful, austere tenderness as heartbreaking as it is breathtaking.

  Peter Ho Davies

  Character, Love Is, Superhero

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• It should be noted, as with so many legends and popularly accepted truths created out of political motivation: There, in fact, is no evidence that the hundreds of murders historically attributed to the werewolves of Gévaudan were actually caused by wolves. As with all witchhunts, the endless battle against ignorance requires one to always keep an open mind and sharp wits when considering such rumors - especially the rumors we choose to enjoy.

  Zeena Schreck

  Motivation, Ignorance, Political

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• For the thinker the world is a thought; for the wit, an image; for the enthusiast, a dream; for the inquirer, truth.

  Ludwig Buchner

  Dream, World, Thinker

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• The true felicity of a lover of books is the luxurious turning of page by page, the surrender, not meanly abject, but deliberate and cautious, with your wits about you, as you deliver yourself into the keeping of the book. This I call reading.

  Edith Wharton

  Reading, Book, Pages

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• A cheerful temper, joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured.

  Joseph Addison

  Cheerful, Innocence, Attractive

  Joseph Addison (1856). “The works of ... Joseph Addison, with notes by R. Hurd”, p.153

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• You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Heart, Use, Chosen

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2014). “The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien”, p.452, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Wealth can be created. Wit and intelligence can't.

  Nicole Williams

  Wealth

  Nicole Williams (2012). “Crash”, p.179, Simon and Schuster

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