quotations about wit
Wit is well-bred insolence.
ARISTOTLE
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Rhetoric
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
At our wittes end.
JOHN HEYWOOD
Proverbs
Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Much Ado About Nothing
Wit is the most rascally, contemptible, beggarly thing on the face of the earth.
COLLEY CIBBER
attributed, Encyclopædia of Quotations
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 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
Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Tempest
Ev'n wit's a burthen, when it talks too long.
JOHN DRYDEN
Sixth Satire of Juvenal
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
A fatalistic Irish wit is a famously effective coping mechanism.
JACK MCENENY
"McEneny waiting for words", Albany Times Union, March 11, 2017
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
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
Reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to any character but that of a wit.
CHARLES LAMB
"Confessions of a Drunkard", The Last Essays of Elia
Wit, without wisdom, is like a song without sense, it does not please long.
H. W. SHAW
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
A good wit ill employed is dangerous in a commonwealth.
DEMOSTHENES
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