quotations about wit
Wit, like the Belly, if it be not fed,
Will starve the Members, and distract the Head.
DANIEL DEFOE
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A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of The True-born Englishman
At our wittes end.
JOHN HEYWOOD
Proverbs
Wit is well-bred insolence.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Wit is something more than a gymnastic trick of the intellect; true wit implies a beam of thought into the essence of a question, a flash that lights up a situation. Wit suggests the delicate but delightful play of a rapier in the hands of a master.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
Ev'n wit's a burthen, when it talks too long.
JOHN DRYDEN
Sixth Satire of Juvenal
Humor is of earlier growth than Wit, and it is in accordance with this earlier growth that it has more affinity with the poetic tendencies, while Wit is more nearly allied to the ratiocinative intellect. Humor draws its materials from situations and characteristics; Wit seizes on unexpected and complex relations.
GEORGE ELIOT
Essays
Some people seem born with a head in which the thin partition that divides great wit from folly is wanting.
ROBERT SOUTHEY
attributed, Day's Collacon
Wit is the most rascally, contemptible, beggarly thing on the face of the earth.
COLLEY CIBBER
attributed, Encyclopædia of Quotations
Wit is the rarest quality to be met with among people of education, and the most common among the uneducated.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims
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.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Wit spares no one.
JEROME USTARIZ
attributed, Day's Collacon
Wit in conversation is only a readiness of thought and a facility of expression, or (in the midwives' phrase) a quick conception, and an easy delivery.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Wit malignantly employed is like a crackling fire that with every fresh blaze sends out sparks. Take care that you are not burnt.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit.
EDWARD YOUNG
"Love of Fame, the Universal Passion", The Complete Works, Poetry and Prose of the Rev. Edward Young
A fatalistic Irish wit is a famously effective coping mechanism.
JACK MCENENY
"McEneny waiting for words", Albany Times Union, March 11, 2017
A good wit ill employed is dangerous in a commonwealth.
DEMOSTHENES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Great wits, like great beauties, look upon mere esteem as a flat insipid thing; nothing less than admiration will content them.
JEREMIAH SEED
Discourses on Several Important Subjects
Her dry wit is so sharp that it leaves scars.
MIKE SCHULZ
River City Reader, January 24, 2016
There was a monstrous deal of stupid quizzing and common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.
JANE AUSTEN
letter to Cassandra, April 21, 1805
Wit is the capacity to fine-tune to context.
RICHARD COYNE
Mood and Mobility: Navigating the Emotional Spaces of Digital Social Networks