Wit Quotes - Page 17

• No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than any [constitutional] provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.

  Roger Brooke Taney

  Men, Liberty, Doctrine

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• [In the Royal Society, there] has been, a constant Resolution, to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver'd so many things, almost in an equal number of words. They have exacted from all their members, a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions; clear senses; a native easiness: bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness, as they can: and preferring the language of Artizans, Countrymen, and Merchants, before that, of Wits, or Scholars.

  Thomas Sprat

  Men, Numbers, Expression

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• Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant, without fault, is greater than the philosopher with many; for what is genius or courage without a heart?

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Inspirational, Art, Integrity

  "The Vicar of Wakefield".

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• Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Integrity, Understanding, Ethics

  Oliver Goldsmith (1803). “The Beauties of Goldsmith, Or, The Complete Treasury of Genius: To which is Prefixed the Life of the Author”, p.106

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• When the wine is in, the wit is out.

  Thomas Becon

  Drinking, Food, Wine

  'Catechism' (ed. J. Ayre, 1844) p. 375

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• For the production of man a different apprenticeship [from forests] was needed to sharpen the wits and quicken the higher manifestations of intellect - a more open veldt country where competition was keener between swiftness and stealth, and where adroitness of thinking played a preponderating role in the preservation of the species.

  Raymond Dart

  Country, Men, Thinking

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• Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Hard Work, Men, Hands

  "Of Books". "Characters", Book by Jean De La Bruyère, www.ourcivilisation.com. 1688.

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• Ohhh, I'm in luv, I'm in luv
  I'm in luv, I'm in luv wit chu
  And there ain't nothin nobody can say cuz
  You're the one for me baby

  Da Brat

  Song, Baby, Cuz

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• It look like the lord just work for wite folks cause ever sens i wasn nothin but a litle boy i been on my on haulin water to the fiel on that ol water cart wit all them dime bukets an that dipper just hittin an old dorthy just trottin and trottin an me up their hittin her wit that rope.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Boys, Water, Dying

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• Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

  Hervey Allen

  Age, Five Senses, 20th Birthday

  Hervey Allen (1933). “Anthony Adverse”

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• If we had time and no money, living by our wits, what story would you tell?

  Adrienne Rich

  Stories, No Money, Ifs

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• Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

  William Shakespeare

  Home, Memorable, Youth

  'The Two Gentlemen Of Verona' (1592-3) act 1, sc. 1, l. 2

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• The girl that I wanna save is like a danger to my health
  Try being wit somebody that wanna be somebody else.

  Drake

  Life, Girl, Being Yourself

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• Pushing me away so I give her space, awww. Dealing wit a heart that I didn't break.

  Drake

  Love, Relationship, Broken Heart

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• Moment I stop havin fun wit it, I'll be done wit it.

  Drake

  Fun, Done, Moments

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• I get it, I get it. I get it, I get it. Your hustle don't ever go unnoticed baby, I'm wit you, I'm wit it.

  Drake

  Baby, Hustle, Unnoticed

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• A writer's voice is not character alone, it is not style alone; it is far more. A writer's voice line the stroke of an artist's brush- is the thumbprint of her whole person- her idea, wit, humor, passions, rhythms.

  Patricia Lee Gauch

  Character, Passion, Writing

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• I want story, wit, music, wryness, color, and a sense of reality in what I read, and I try to get it in what I write.

  John D. MacDonald

  Writing, Reality, Color

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• Calculus is the most powerful weapon of thought yet devised by the wit of man.

  Wallace B. Smith

  Powerful, Math, Men

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• Go, little book, and wish to all
  Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall,
  A bin of wine, a spice of wit,
  A house with lawns enclosing it,
  A living river by the door,
  A nightingale in the sycamore!

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Flower, Book, Wine

  'Underwoods' (1887) 'Envoy'.

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• Hail, high Excess especially in wine,
  To thee in worship do I bend the knee
  Who preach abstemiousness unto me
  My skull thy pulpit, as my paunch thy shrine.
  Precept on precept, aye, and line on line,
  Could ne'er persuade so sweetly to agree
  With reason as thy touch, exact and free,
  Upon my forehead and along my spine.
  At thy command eschewing pleasure's cup,
  With the hot grape I warm no more my wit;
  When on thy stool of penitence I sit
  I'm quite converted, for I can't get up.
  Ungrateful he who afterward would falter
  To make new sacrifices at thine altar!

  Ambrose Bierce

  Wine, Sacrifice, Skulls

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2393, Delphi Classics

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• Wine ...moderately drunken it doth quicken a man's wits, It doth comfort the heart.

  Andrew Boorde

  Heart, Wine, Men

  Andrew Boorde (1936). “The wisdom of Andrew Boorde”

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• ...stories about [the German composer Johannes] Brahms's rudeness and wit amused me in particular. For instance, I loved the one about how a great wine connoisseur invited the composer to dinner. 'This is the Brahms of my cellar,' he said to his guests, producing a dust-covered bottle and pouring some into the master's glass. Brahms looked first at the color of the wine, then sniffed its bouquet, finally took a sip, and put the glass down without saying a word. 'Don't you like it?' asked the host. 'Hmm,' Brahms muttered. 'Better bring your Beethoven!'

  Arthur Rubinstein

  Wine, Glasses, Dust

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• There is no such whetstone, to sharpen a good wit and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.

  Roger Ascham

  Teaching, Praise, Sharpening

  'The Schoolmaster' (1570) bk. 1

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• Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with himself, he may be growing less pleasing to others. Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has presented.

  James Boswell

  Wine, Men, Giving

  James Boswell (2008). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Easyread Edition”, p.181, ReadHowYouWant.com

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