Wit Quotes - Page 30

• 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

  Horse, Jingles, Bells

  Henry Ward Beecher (1850). “Industry and idleness: with causes of dishonesty : to which are appended six warnings”, p.97

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• Englands genius filled all measureOf heart and soul, of strength and pleasure,Gave to the mind its emperor,And life was larger than before:Nor sequent centuries could hitOrbit and sum of Shakespeares wit. The men who lived with him becamePoets, for the air was fame.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heart, Men, Air

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2007). “Poems”, p.228, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Foolish jokers are thick on the ground, and it rains insects of that sort everywhere. A good joker is a rarity; even a man who is such by nature finds it hard to sustain the part for long; it seldom happens that the man who makes us laugh wins our esteem.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Country, Way, Kind

  "Of Society And Conversation". "Characters", Book by Jean De La Bruyère, www.ourcivilisation.com. 1688.

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• A well-read writer, with good taste, is one who has the command of the wit of other men; he searches where knowledge is to be found; and though he may not himself excel in invention, his ingenuity may compose one of those agreeable books, the deliciæ of literature, that will out-last the fading meteors of his day.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Book, Men, Fading

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• We are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Jonathan Hardy. The clever wit and joy he brought to his performance of Rygel was a true gift to the world of Farscape. My sincerest condolences go out to Jonathan's family and to his many fans around the world.

  Brian Henson

  Clever, Condolences, Joy

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• Many useful and valuable books lie buried in shops and libraries, unknown and unexamined, unless some lucky compiler opens them by chance, and finds an easy spoil of wit and learning.

  Samuel Johnson

  Lying, Book, Library

  Samuel Johnson (1818). “A Dictionary Of The English Language; In Which The Words Are Deduced From Their Originals; And Illustrated In Their Different Significations, By Examples From The Best Writers: Together With A History of the Language, and an English Grammar”, p.7

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• The greatest fault of a penetrating wit is to go beyond the mark.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Faults, Mark

  "The Moral Maxims and Reflections". Book by François de La Rochefoucauld. Maxim 377, 1678.

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• He is a first-rate collector who can, upon all occasions, collect his wits.

  George D. Prentice

  Firsts, Composure, Rate

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• What Time hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit.

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Hair, Given

  William Shakespeare (1740). “The Works of Shakespeare ...: Collated with the Oldest Copies, and Corrected: with Notes, Explanatory, and Critical”, p.194

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• Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge.

  Plato

  Knowledge, People, Pleasure

  Plato (2016). “The Republic”, p.390, Xist Publishing

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• Someone who gossips well has a reputation for being good company or even a wit, never for being a gossip.

  Louis Kronenberger

  Gossip, Reputation, Good Company

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• It is always the same: women bedeck themselves with jewels and furs, and men with wit and quotations.

  Maurice Chevalier

  Men, Jewels, Fur

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• If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Criticism, Age

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.899, Delphi Classics

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• Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Passion, Exercise, Order

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• Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Fashion, Grace, Virtue

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• To be over much facetious is the accomplishment of courtiers and blemish of the wise.

  Saadi

  Wise, Accomplishment, Facetious

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• The great Creator to revere
  Must sure become the creature;
  But still the preaching cant forbear,
  And ev'n the rigid feature:
  Yet ne'er with wits profane to range
  Be complaisance extended;An atheist laugh's a poor exchange
  For deity offended.

  Robert Burns

  Atheist, Laughing, Deities

  'Epistle to a Young Friend' (1786) st. 9

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• It is commonly said that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humor, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Light, May

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.440

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• Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true Wit or good Sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore often seen to smile, but never heard to laugh.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Fashion, Laughter, Silly

  Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.145, OUP Oxford

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• The greatest advantage I know of being thought a wit by the world is, that it gives one the greater freedom of playing the fool.

  Alexander Pope

  Giving, World, Fool

  Alexander Pope (1812). “The works of Alexander Pope. With a selection of explanatory notes, and the account of his life by dr. Johnson”, p.230

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• The best prophet is common sense, our native wit.

  Euripides

  Common Sense, Prophet, Native

  Euripides (1968). “Euripides: The Cyclops, translated by W. Arrowsmith. Heracles, translated by W. Arrowsmith. Iphigenia in Tauris, translated by W. Bynner. Helen translated by R. Lattimore”

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• Alas, how right the ancient saying is: We, who are old, are nothing else but noise And shape. Like mimicries of dreams we go, And have no wits, although we think us wise.

  Euripides

  Wise, Dream, Thinking

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• True wit, to every man, is that which falls on another.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Fall, Men, Every Man

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “Imaginary conversations of Greeks and Romans”, p.186

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• Men whose wit has been mother of villainy once have learned from it to be evil in all things.

  Sophocles

  Mother, Men, Evil

  Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (1960). “The Complete Greek Tragedies: Sophocles”

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• Wit and wisdom are born with a man.

  John Selden

  Men, Thinking, Born

  John Selden, Richard Milward (1786). “Table talk: being the discourses of John Selden, esq., or his sense of various matters of weight and high consequence. Relating especially to religion and state”, p.77

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