quotations about wit
Wit is folly, unless a wise man has the keeping of it.
ENGLISH PROVERB
Wit is the most rascally, contemptible, beggarly thing on the face of the earth.
COLLEY CIBBER
attributed, Encyclopædia of Quotations
He depended on his mother wit to get him out of any scrape his father ignorance got him into.
STRICKLAND GILLILAN
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
A witty woman is a treasure; a witty beauty is a power.
GEORGE MEREDITH
Diana of the Crossways
Those who object to wit are envious of it.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims
Make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
The wittiest man is one who says a good thing, and appears not to know it.
JOHN VAN BUREN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
The Little Gypsy
Your wit is as sharp as your....um. Hmm. I dunno. Whatever you have that's sharp.
LEAVEWELLENOUGHALONE
user comments posted on slashfilm, February 1, 2016
Let your wit rather serve you for a buckler to defend yourself, by a handsome reply, than the sword to wound others, though with ever so facetious reproach; remembering that a word cuts deeper than a sharper weapon, and the wound it makes is longer curing.
FRANCIS OSBORNE
Advice to a Son
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
Wit is the clash and reconcilement of incongruities, the meeting of extremes round a corner.
LEIGH HUNT
Wit and Humour, Selected from the English Poets
Her dry wit is so sharp that it leaves scars.
MIKE SCHULZ
River City Reader, January 24, 2016
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
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
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
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
A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit;
How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
The well of true wit is truth itself.
GEORGE MEREDITH
Diana of the Crossways
A fatalistic Irish wit is a famously effective coping mechanism.
JACK MCENENY
"McEneny waiting for words", Albany Times Union, March 11, 2017