quotations about wit
Wit resembles a coquette; those who the most eagerly run after it are the least favored.
JOSEPH CHENIER
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
This is that gross sort of raillery, which is so offensive in good company. And indeed there is as much difference between one sort and another, as between fair-dealing and hypocrisy; or between the genteelest wit, and the most scurrilous buffoonery. But by the freedom of conversation this illiberal kind of wit will lose its credit. For wit is its own remedy. Liberty and commerce bring it to its true standard.
ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Volume 1
Her dry wit is so sharp that it leaves scars.
MIKE SCHULZ
River City Reader, January 24, 2016
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
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 appreciates wit.
COELIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Where judgment has wit to express it, there's the best orator.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
At our wittes end.
JOHN HEYWOOD
Proverbs
Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Tempest
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 is Welcome. Timely Wit, Even More So. Show me one person who doesn't like a good laugh and I'll show you a hypocrite.
ROHAN AYYAR
"5 Brands Winning on Social Media -- And What You can Learn From Them", Business 2 Community, January 21, 2016
It is as offensive to speak wit in a fool's company, as it would be ill manners to whisper in it; he is displeased at both for the same reason, because he is ignorant of what is said.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Ev'n wit's a burthen, when it talks too long.
JOHN DRYDEN
Sixth Satire of Juvenal
Wit is the capacity to fine-tune to context.
RICHARD COYNE
Mood and Mobility: Navigating the Emotional Spaces of Digital Social Networks
His wit is his new bat and the Twitter handle his new pitch.
JAIDEEP GHOSH
"Sachin Tendulkar Seeks Caption For Picture With Virender Sehwag", NDTV, April 5, 2017
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
Many would live by their Wits, but break for want of Stock.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1750
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