Jest Quotes - Page 4

• Where there is happiness, there is found pleasure in nonsense. The transformation of experience into its opposite, of the suitable into the unsuitable, the obligatory into the optional (but in such a manner that this process produces no injury and is only imagined in jest), is a pleasure.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Opposites, Transformation, Nonsense

  Friedrich Nietzsche “Writings of Nietzsche: Volume III”, Lulu.com

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• The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.

  Samuel Johnson

  Expectations, Novelty, Wit

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.5

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• In France everything is a matter for jest. People make quips about the scaffold, about Napoleon's defeat on the banks of The Beresina, and about the barricades of our revolutions. So, at the assizes of the Last Judgment, there will always be a Frenchmen to crack a joke.

  Honore de Balzac

  People, Cracks, Matter

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• Every dream is a prophecy: every jest is an earnest in the womb of Time.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Funny, Dream, Womb

  George Bernard Shaw (2004). “John Bull's Other Island”, p.164, 1st World Publishing

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• Life is too transcendentally humorous for a man not to take it seriously. Compared with it, Death is but a shallow jest.

  William John Locke

  Life, Humorous, Men

  William John Locke (1925). “Simon the Jester”, p.322, Library of Alexandria

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• It is a melancholy consideration that there should be several among us so hardened and deluded as to think an oath a proper subject for a jest; and to make this, which is one of the most solemn acts of religion, an occasion of mirth. Yet such is the depravation of our manners at present, that nothing is more frequent than to hear profligate men ridiculing, to the best of their abilities, these sacred pledges of their duty and allegiance; and endeavouring to be witty upon themselves, for daring to prevaricate with God and man.

  Joseph Addison

  Witty, Men, Thinking

  Joseph Addison (1837). “The Tatler. The Guardian. The Freeholder. The Whig-examiner. The lover. Dialogues upon the usefulness of ancient medals. Remarks on several parts of Italy, etc. The present state of the war. The late trial and conviction of Count Tariff. The evidences of the Christian religion. Essay on Virgil's Georgics. Poems on several occasions. Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Notes on some of the foregoing stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Poemata. Rosamond. Cato. The drummer”, p.181

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• When thou dost tell another's jest, therein Omit the oaths, which true wit cannot need; Pick out of tales the mirth, but not the sin.

  George Herbert

  Needs, Mirth, Sin

  George Herbert (1871). “The English poems of George Herbert, together with his collection of proverbs entitled Jacula prudentum”, p.5

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• It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Kindness, Thinking, Looks

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• It must be that there is something naturally absurd in a sincere emotion, though why there should be I cannot imagine, unless it is that man, the ephemeral inhabitant of an insignificant planet, with all his pain and all his striving is but a jest in an eternal mind.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Pain, Men, Mind

  W. Somerset Maugham (2010). “Cakes And Ale”, p.131, Random House

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• O, Times! O, Manners! It is my opinion That you are changing sadly your dominion I mean the reign of manners hath long ceased, For men have none at all, or bad at least; And as for times, altho' 'tis said by many The "good old times" were far the worst of any, Of which sound Doctrine I believe each tittle Yet still I think these worst a little. I've been a thinking -isn't that the phrase?- I like your Yankee words and Yankee ways - I've been a thinking, whether it were best To Take things seriously, Or all in jest

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Believe, Mean, Men

  Edgar Allan Poe (2014). “Complete Collection of Edgar Allan Poe - 170+ eBooks (Complete Tales, Poems, Novels, Essays, Miscellaneous, Play)”, p.702, Ageless Reads

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• An atheist is but a mad, ridiculous derider of piety, but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action.

  Alexander Pope

  Atheist, Hypocrite, Mad

  Alexander Pope, Owen Ruffhead (1807). “Poetry and letters-1807”, p.109

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• Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications. Our Guildensterns play Hamlet for us, and our Hamlets have to jest like Prince Hal. The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

  Oscar Wilde

  Real, Men, Play

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.810, GENERAL PRESS

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• Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Life And Death, Matter, Lost

  Edgar Allan Poe (2015). “The Masque of the Red Death”, p.7, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told, and I have squandered my resistance, for a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises. All lies in jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest...la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lala-la-la-la-la...

  Paul Simon

  Lying, Boys, Men

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• ....there is an ending [to Infinite Jest] as far as I'm concerned. Certain kind of parallel lines are supposed to start converging in such a way that an "end" can be projected by the reader somewhere beyond the right frame. If no such convergence or projection occured to you, then the book's failed for you.

  David Foster Wallace

  Book, Lines, Way

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• I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you’re just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there’s not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name

  André Aciman

  Goodbye, Doors, Names

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• I know what happiness and what despair are, and I never make a jest of such feelings. Take it, then, but in exchange —

  Alexandre Dumas

  Feelings, Despair, Knows

  Alexandre Dumas (1997). “The Count of Monte Cristo”, p.191, Wordsworth Editions

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• ... she, that will with kittens jest, Should bear a kitten's joke.

  William Cowper

  Cat, Bears, Kitten

  William Cowper, James Thomson (1832). “The Works of Cowper and Thompson: Including Many Letters and Poems Never Before Published in this Country. With a New and Interesting Memoir of the Life of Thomson”, p.157

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• The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest.

  Annie Dillard

  Made, Earnest, Solemn

  ANNIE DILLARD (1974). “PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK”

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• If you are affronted it is better to pass it by in silence, or with a jest, though with some dishonor, than to endeavor revenge. If you can keep reason above passion, that and watchfulness will be your best defenders.

  Isaac Newton

  Revenge, Passion, Silence

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• The wood-carver can fashion whatever he will. Yet his products are but toys of the moment, to be glanced at in jest, not fashioned according to any precept or law. When times change, the carver too will change his style and make new trifles to hit the fancy of the passing day. But there is another kind of artist, who sets more soberly about his work, striving to give real beauty to the things which men actually use and to give to them the shape which tradition has ordained. This maker of real things must not for a moment be confused with the maker of idle toys.

  Murasaki Shikibu

  Fashion, Confused, Real

  Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.61, Tuttle Publishing

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• The fund of sensible discourse is limited; that of jest and badinerie is infinite.

  William Shenstone

  Infinite, Sensible, Discourse

  William Shenstone (1804). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.176

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• Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest

  Michel de Montaigne

  Use, Grammar, Combat

  Michel de Montaigne, John Florio, Michael Innes (1928). “Montaigne's essays”

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• Many a truth is told in jest.

  Jonathan Swift

  Wisdom, Truth Is

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• Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
  To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;
  Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
  And every stranger finds a ready chair
  Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
  Where all the ruddy family around
  Laugh at the jest or pranks, that never fail,
  Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
  Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
  And learn the luxury of doing good.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Pain, Simple, Fire

  Oliver Goldsmith (1833). “Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith: With a New Life of the Author”, p.81

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