Wit Quotes - Page 4

• The next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to be able to quote another's wit.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Witty, Self, Able

  Christian Nestell Bovee (1862). “Intuitions and Summaries of Thought”, p.124

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• The wit of men compared to that of women is like rouge compared to the rose.

  Germain-Francois Poullain de Saint-Foix

  Men, Rose, Rouge

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• The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Funny, Patience

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• There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

  Dorothy Parker

  Funny, Women, Distance

  Quoted in Paris Review, Summer 1956

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• Wit must be without effort. Wit is play, not work; a nimbleness of the fancy, not a laborious effort of the will; a license, a holiday, a carnival of thought and feeling, not a trifling with speech, a constraint upon language, a duress upon words.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Holiday, Play, Effort

  Christian Nestell Bovee (1862). “Intuitions and Summaries of Thought”, p.206

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• Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Levels, Welcome

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2602, Delphi Classics

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• Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, People, Shining

  Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.345, Oxford Paperbacks

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• Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Use, Weapons, Dangerous

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.588, 谷月社

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• It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.

  Jonathan Swift

  Cutting, Razors, Lost

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.27, Delphi Classics

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• We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous; we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it.

  William Hazlitt

  Spirit, Insolence, Vivacity

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1486, Delphi Classics

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• Wit, like hunger, will be with great difficulty restrained from falling on vice and ignorance, where there is great plenty and variety of food.

  Henry Fielding

  Fall, Ignorance, Vices

  Henry Fielding (1783). “The Beauties of Fielding. Carefully Selected ... To which is Added Some Account of His Life”, p.184

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• There is nothing so unready as readiness of wit.

  Antoine Rivarol

  Readiness

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• Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinction. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. It is like ice, on which no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage, can plead any immunity; they must walk gingerly, according to the laws of ice, or down they must go, dignity and all.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Ice, Law

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.86, Harvard University Press

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• [S]ince brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

  William Shakespeare

  Soul, Important Hamlet, Polonius

  William Shakespeare, Roma Gill (2002). “Hamlet”, p.44, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Fear, Should, Fine

  Miguel de Cervantes (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Miguel de Cervantes (Illustrated)”, p.1724, Delphi Classics

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• If you don t know where you are, a map won't help.

  Watts Humphrey

  Baseball, Goals Dreams, Yankees

  Watts S. Humphrey (1989). “Managing the Software Process”, Addison-Wesley Professional

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• His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home.

  William Cowper

  Home, Looks, Invites

  'Conversation' (1782) l. 303

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• This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among Lords.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Lord

  "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations". Book by John Bartlett, 10th ed, Boswell's Life, vol. ii, ch. i, 1919.

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• Those who object to wit are envious of it.

  William Hazlitt

  Envious, Objects

  William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.136

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• Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment.

  William Shenstone

  Judgment, Pupils

  William Shenstone, Samuel Johnson, Robert Dodsley (1807). “Essays on men and manners; with aphorisms, criticisms, impromptus, fragments, etc”, p.159

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• One wit, like a knuckle of ham in soup, gives a zest and flavour to the dish, but more than one serves only to spoil the pottage.

  Tobias Smollett

  Zest, Giving, Ham

  Tobias Smollett (1820). “The expedition of Humphry Clinker”, p.161

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• Wit, without wisdom, is salt without meat; and that is but a comfortless dish to set a hungry man down to.

  George Horne

  Men, Meat, Salt

  George Horne (1818). “The works of the Right Reverend George Horne ...: to which are prefixed memoirs of his life, studies, and writings”, p.421

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• Wit is brushwood; judgment, timber; the one gives the greatest flame, the other yields the most durable heat; and both meeting make the best fire.

  Thomas Overbury

  Fire, Yield, Flames

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• Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Sarcastic, Sarcasm, Long

  Thomas Carlyle (1834). “Fraser's Magazine”, p.195

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• A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.

  Alexander Pope

  Sarcastic, Dunces

  'The Dunciad' (1742) bk. 4, l. 90

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