Wit Quotes - Page 39

• Well, something must be done for May, The time is drawing nigh-- To figure in the Catalogue, And woo the public eye. Something I must invent and paint; But oh my wit is not Like one of those kind substantives That answer Who and What?

  Thomas Hood

  Eye, Drawing, Done

  Thomas Hood (1862). “the works of thomas hood”, p.361

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• It takes a hell of a lot for a man to put up with me. I can be a handful.

  Michael Jordan

  Men, Hell, Handful

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• Women's beauty, like men's wit, is generally fatal to the owners.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Beauty, Men, Owners

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• If you have wit, use it to please and not to hurt: you may shine like the sun in the temperate zones without scorching.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Hurt, Humor, Shining

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.93, Oxford University Press

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• Laugh not too much; the witty man laughs least: For wit is news only to ignorance. Lesse at thine own things laugh; lest in the jest Thy person share, and the conceit advance.

  George Herbert

  Witty, Laughter, Ignorance

  George Herbert (1835). “The Works of George Herbert: Poems”, p.9

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• When thou dost tell another's jest, therein Omit the oaths, which true wit cannot need; Pick out of tales the mirth, but not the sin.

  George Herbert

  Needs, Mirth, Sin

  George Herbert (1871). “The English poems of George Herbert, together with his collection of proverbs entitled Jacula prudentum”, p.5

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• The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.

  William Cowper

  Sports, Reading, Giving

  William Cowper (1855). “The complete poetical works of William Cowper, with life and critical notice of his writings”, p.113

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• There still remains to mortify a wit The many-headed monster of the pit.

  Alexander Pope

  Acting, Monsters, Pits

  'Imitations of Horace' Horace bk. 2, Epistle 1 (1737) l. 304

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• But honest instinct comes a volunteer; Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short in human wit.

  Alexander Pope

  Volunteer, Honest, Instinct

  Alexander Pope (1873). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope Edited with Notes and Introductory Memoir by Adolphus William Ward”, p.210

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• Fool, 'tis in vain from wit to wit to roam: Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.

  Alexander Pope

  Home, Charity, Fool

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Dyce (1859). “The poetical works of Alexander Pope: with a life”, p.212

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• I have more zeal than wit.

  Alexander Pope

  Zeal

  Alexander Pope (1873). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope Edited with Notes and Introductory Memoir by Adolphus William Ward”, p.443

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• No charm, no humor, no wit -- and a personality which can only be described as 'icky.' .

  Conan O'Brien

  Personality, Charm

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• Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation.

  Jacques Barzun

  Funny, Humor, Literature

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• No matter how much restriction civilization imposes on the individual, he nevertheless finds some way to circumvent it. Wit is the best safety valve modern man has evolved; the more civilization, the more repression, the more need there is for wit.".

  Sigmund Freud

  Men, Civilization, Safety

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• We pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success.

  Bruce Barton

  Failure, Grace, Style

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• Wit lies in the likeness of things that are different, and in the difference of things that are alike.

  Madame de Stael

  Lying, Differences, Different

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• Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.

  Abraham Cowley

  Triumph, Conquer, Poet

  Abraham Cowley (1779). “The Works of the English Poets. With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, by Samuel Johnson”, p.86

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• Things are bound to begin happening if you've got your wits about you. You create the lucky accidents.

  Lewis Thomas

  Lucky, Accidents, Happenings

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• Truth! why shall every wretch of letters Dare to speak truth against his betters! Let ragged virtue stand aloof, Nor mutter accents of reproof; Let ragged wit a mute become, When wealth and power would have her dumb.

  Charles Churchill

  Truth, Dumb, Letters

  Charles Churchill, James Hannay (1866). “The poetical works of Charles Churchill, with notes by W. Tooke. with a memoir by J.L. Hannay”, p.116

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• Surely in much talk there cannot choose but be much vanity. Loquacity is the fistula of the mind,--ever-running and almost incurable, let every man, therefore, be a Phocion or Pythagorean, to speak briefly to the point or not at all; let him labor like them of Crete, to show more wit in his discourse than words, and not to pour out of his mouth a flood of the one, when he can hardly wring out of his brains a drop of the other.

  Herbert Spencer

  Running, Men, Vanity

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• Time is always wanting to me, and I cannot meet with a single day when I am nut hurried along, driven to by wits'-end by urgent work, business to attent do or some service to render.

  George Sand

  Time, Nuts, Driven

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• It is sometimes forgotten how much wit there is in certain works of abstract art. There is a certain point in undergoing anguish when one encounters the comic.

  Robert Motherwell

  Art, Encounters, Sometimes

  Robert Motherwell (1999). “The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell”

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• A little wit and a great deal of ill-nature will furnish a man for satire; but the greatest instance of wit is to commend well.

  John Tillotson

  Men, Littles, Satire

  John Tillotson (1819). “The wisdom of being religious”, p.185

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• The belly (i.e. necessity) is the teacher of art and the liberal bestower of wit.

  Aulus Persius Flaccus

  Teacher, Art, Eating

  "The Satires". Book by Aulus Persius Flaccus, Prologue, 10,

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• Two goddesses now must Cyprus adore; The Muses are ten, and the Graces are four; Stella's wit is so charming, so sweet her fair face, She shines a new Venus, a Muse, and a Grace.

  Callimachus

  Sweet, Two, Shining

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