Wit Quotes - Page 33

• Writing well is at one and the same time good thinking, good feeling, and good expression; it is having wit, soul, and taste, all together.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  Writing, Thinking, Expression

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• Is it possible your pragmatical worship should not know that the comparisons made between wit and wit, courage and courage, beauty and beauty, birth and birth, are always odious and ill taken?.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Courage, Taken, Birth

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1855). “The history of Don Quixote de la Mancha”, p.176

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• An ounce of wit that is bought, Is worth a pound that is taught.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Taught, Pounds, Poor Richard

  Benjamin Franklin “Poor Richard Day by Day”, Lulu.com

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• Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but backrout quite the wits.

  William Shakespeare

  Ribs, Eating, Rich

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• Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not when someone's saying "I love you.

  Judith Viorst

  Love You, Soul, May

  Judith Viorst (1987). “Love and Guilt and the Meaning of Life, Etc.”, Fireside

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• Indeed, so far from being humorous, the male American is the most abnormally serious creature who ever existed.. It is only fair to admit that he can exaggerate, but even his exaggeration has a rational basis. It is not founded on wit or fancy; it does not spring from any poetic imagination.

  Oscar Wilde

  Spring, Humorous, Imagination

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• Amazingly, much of the best cartoon work was done early on in the medium's history. The early cartoonists, with no path before them, produced work of such sophistication, wit, and beauty that it increasingly seems to me that cartoon evolution is working backward. Comic strips are moving toward a primordial goo rather than away from it . . . Not only can comics be more than we're getting today. but the comics already have been more than we're getting today.

  Bill Watterson

  Moving, Cartoon, Done

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• Well, something must be done for May, The time is drawing nigh-- To figure in the Catalogue, And woo the public eye. Something I must invent and paint; But oh my wit is not Like one of those kind substantives That answer Who and What?

  Thomas Hood

  Eye, Drawing, Done

  Thomas Hood (1862). “the works of thomas hood”, p.361

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• It takes a hell of a lot for a man to put up with me. I can be a handful.

  Michael Jordan

  Men, Hell, Handful

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• Women's beauty, like men's wit, is generally fatal to the owners.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Beauty, Men, Owners

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• If you have wit, use it to please and not to hurt: you may shine like the sun in the temperate zones without scorching.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Hurt, Humor, Shining

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.93, Oxford University Press

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• Laugh not too much; the witty man laughs least: For wit is news only to ignorance. Lesse at thine own things laugh; lest in the jest Thy person share, and the conceit advance.

  George Herbert

  Witty, Laughter, Ignorance

  George Herbert (1835). “The Works of George Herbert: Poems”, p.9

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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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• The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.

  William Cowper

  Sports, Reading, Giving

  William Cowper (1855). “The complete poetical works of William Cowper, with life and critical notice of his writings”, p.113

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• There still remains to mortify a wit The many-headed monster of the pit.

  Alexander Pope

  Acting, Monsters, Pits

  'Imitations of Horace' Horace bk. 2, Epistle 1 (1737) l. 304

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• But honest instinct comes a volunteer; Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short in human wit.

  Alexander Pope

  Volunteer, Honest, Instinct

  Alexander Pope (1873). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope Edited with Notes and Introductory Memoir by Adolphus William Ward”, p.210

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• Fool, 'tis in vain from wit to wit to roam: Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.

  Alexander Pope

  Home, Charity, Fool

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Dyce (1859). “The poetical works of Alexander Pope: with a life”, p.212

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• I have more zeal than wit.

  Alexander Pope

  Zeal

  Alexander Pope (1873). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope Edited with Notes and Introductory Memoir by Adolphus William Ward”, p.443

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• No charm, no humor, no wit -- and a personality which can only be described as 'icky.' .

  Conan O'Brien

  Personality, Charm

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• Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation.

  Jacques Barzun

  Funny, Humor, Literature

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• No matter how much restriction civilization imposes on the individual, he nevertheless finds some way to circumvent it. Wit is the best safety valve modern man has evolved; the more civilization, the more repression, the more need there is for wit.".

  Sigmund Freud

  Men, Civilization, Safety

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• We pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success.

  Bruce Barton

  Failure, Grace, Style

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• Wit lies in the likeness of things that are different, and in the difference of things that are alike.

  Madame de Stael

  Lying, Differences, Different

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• Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.

  Abraham Cowley

  Triumph, Conquer, Poet

  Abraham Cowley (1779). “The Works of the English Poets. With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, by Samuel Johnson”, p.86

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• Things are bound to begin happening if you've got your wits about you. You create the lucky accidents.

  Lewis Thomas

  Lucky, Accidents, Happenings

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