Wit Quotes
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Old Madame du Deffand and her friends talked for fifty years without stopping. And of it all, what remains? Perhaps three witty sayings. So that we are at liberty to suppose either that nothing was said, or that nothing witty was said, or that the fraction of three witty sayings lasted eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty nights, which does not leave a liberal allowance of wit for any one of them.
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As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers
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This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas; And utters it again when God doth please: He is wit's pedler; and retails his wares.
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My father's wit, and my mother's tongue, assist me!
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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.
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Wit, like money, bears an extra value when rung down immediately it is wanted. Men pay severely who require credit.
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A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit; How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!
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This world is a vaporous jest at best, Tossed off by the gods in laughter, And a cruel attempt at wit were it, If nothing better came after.
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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.
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There are no fools so troublesome as those who have some wit.
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Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity?
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Humour is the making others act or talk absurdly and unconsciously; wit is the pointing out and ridiculing that absurdity consciously, and with more or less ill-nature.
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He seemeth to be most ignorant that trusteth most to his wit.
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Indeed, so far from being humorous, the male American is the most abnormally serious creature who ever existed.. It is only fair to admit that he can exaggerate, but even his exaggeration has a rational basis. It is not founded on wit or fancy; it does not spring from any poetic imagination.
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He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.
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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.
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A wit should no more be sincere, than a woman constant; one argues a decay of parts, as to other of beauty.
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Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.
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Brevity is the soul of wit.
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In Paris, you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals, and in Florence you learn poise.
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Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment.
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The more wit you have, the more good nature you must show, to induce people to pardon your superiority, for that is no easy matter.
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To say that it is without pace, point, focus, interest, drama, wit or originality is to say simply that it does not happen to be my cup of tea.
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The mere wit is only a human bauble. He is to life what bells are to horses-not expected to draw the load, but only to jingle while the horses draw.
