Wit Quotes - Page 37

• Humor wades across a brook, wit jumps over it.

  Austin O'Malley

  Wade, Brooks, Over It

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• Metaphor is, as a common feature of linguistic practice, an incidental expediency, a homely administering of first-aid by mother-wit to jams or halts in expression suddenly confronting speakers, with no respectable linguistic solution immediately in sight.

  Laura Riding

  Mother, Sight, Expression

  "The Matter of Metaphor". "Rational Meaning and Supplementary Essays". Book by Laura Riding and Schuyler B. Jackson, edited by William Harmon, 1997.

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• I have always considered The Merry Wives one of the worst plays, if not altogether the worst, that Shakespeare has left us. The wit for the most part is dreary or foolish; the tone is coarse and farcical; and the characters want the fine distinctive touches he so well knew how to give. If some luckless wight had written such a comedy in our time, I should like to see what the critics would say to it?

  George Henry Lewes

  Character, Play, Giving

  John Forster, George Henry Lewes (1896). “Dramatic Essays”

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• The Scandinavians are dear people but they've never been what you might call bywords for wit and sparkle, have they?

  Kingsley Amis

  People, Might, Sparkle

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• It is surprising to see what superficial, inconsequential reasonings satisfy the most part of mankind. A piece of wit, a jest, a simile, or a quotation of an Author, passes for a mighty argument.... This weakness and effeminacy of mankind in being persuaded where they are delighted, have made them the sport of orators, poets, and men of wit.

  John Arbuthnot

  Sports, Men, Pieces

  George Atherton Aitken, John Arbuthnot (1892). “The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot, M.D.: Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians”

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• The key to spontaneous wit is an unburdened mind.

  Darwin Ortiz

  Keys, Mind, Spontaneous

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• Eric Schlosser's book on the economy and strategies of the fast-food business should be read by anyone who likes to take their children to fast-food restaurants. I shall certainly never do that again. He employs a long, cold burn, a quiet and impassioned accumulation of detail, with calm, wit and clarity. (...) Fast Food Nation is witness to the rigour and seriousness of the best American journalism, readable, reliable and extremely carefully done.

  Adam Nicolson

  Children, Book, Long

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• Sometimes we meet a fool with wit, never one with discretion.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Fool, Sometimes, Discretion

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• Passion very often makes the wisest men fools, and very often too inspires the greatest fools with wit.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Passion, Men, Wisest Man

  "Moral Maxims and Reflections". Book by François de La Rochefoucauld, no. 7, 1665-1678.

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• Wit is a form of force that leaves the limbs at rest.

  George Eliot

  Form, Limbs, Force

  George Eliot (1873). “Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot”, p.175

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• Who can prove Wit to be witty when with deeper ground Dulness intuitive declares wit dull?

  George Eliot

  Witty, Dull, Deeper

  George Eliot “Poems”, Jazzybee Verlag

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• A jargon form'd from the lost language, wit, Confounded in that Babel of the pit; Form'd by diseased conceptions, weak and wild, Sick lust of souls, and an abortive child; Born between whores and fops, by lewd compacts, Before the play, or else between the acts; Nor wonder, if from such polluted minds Should spring such short and transitory kinds.

  Jonathan Swift

  Children, Spring, Play

  Jonathan Swift (1801). “The Works of of the Rev. Jonathan Swift”, p.411

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• To aspire to be superhuman is a most discreditable admission that you lack the guts, the wit, the moderating judgment to be successfully and consummately human.

  Aldous Huxley

  Judgment, Admission, Guts

  Aldous Huxley (1970). “Collected Works: Do what you will”

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• Good wits jump; a word to the wise is enough.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Wise, Wise Words, Enough

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1993). “Don Quixote”, p.564, Wordsworth Editions

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• I think humor is warmer, and wit is colder. Wit is judgment, whereas humor invites some sort of response.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Thinking, Judgment, Response

  Interview with Phong Bui, brooklynrail.org. March 4, 2014.

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• Wit is well-bred insolence.

  Aristotle

  Insolence, Wells

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• Where judgment has wit to express it, there's the best orator.

  William Penn

  Judgment, Orators

  Benjamin Franklin, William Penn (2012). “Franklin's Way to Wealth and Penn's Maxims”, p.38, Courier Corporation

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• Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting.

  Washington Irving

  Wine, Oil, Ingredients

  Washington Irving (2006). “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories From the Sketch Book”, p.178, Penguin

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• There's nothing like being in fashion. A man that has once got his character up for a wit is always sure of a laugh, say what he may. He may utter as much nonsense as he pleases, and all will pass current. No one stops to question the coin of a rich man; but a poor devil cannot pass off either a joke or a guinea without its being examined on both sides. Wit and coin are always doubted with a threadbare coat.

  Washington Irving

  Fashion, Character, Men

  Washington Irving, Charles Neider (1998). “The Complete Tales of Washington Irving”, p.274, Da Capo Press

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• This world is a vaporous jest at best, Tossed off by the gods in laughter, And a cruel attempt at wit were it, If nothing better came after.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Life, Laughter, World

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2016). “Complete Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Delphi Classics)”, p.595, Delphi Classics

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• A man of remarkable genius may afford to pass by a piece of wit, if it happen to border on abuse. A little genius is obliged to catch at every witticism indiscriminately.

  William Shenstone

  Men, Abuse, Borders

  William Shenstone (1804). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.98

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• Love must kiss that mortal's eyesWho hopes to see fair Arcady.No gold can buy you entrance there;But beggared Love may go all bare-No wisdom won with weariness;But Love goes in with Folly's dress-No fame that wit could ever win;But only Love may lead Love in.

  Henry Cuyler Bunner

  Kissing, Winning, Gold

  Henry Cuyler Bunner (1896). “The Poems of H. C. Bunner ...”

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• Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

  William Cowper

  Genius, Substitutes, Authorship

  William Cowper, John William Cunningham (1835). “The works ¬of William Cowper: Poems : with an essay on the genius and poetry of Cowper”, p.19

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• Some people seem born with a head in which the thin partition that divides great wit from folly is wanting.

  Robert Southey

  People, Born, Folly

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• My wit is sharper then the finest mustache, and when I walk among men I make truths ring like spurs.

  Edmond Rostand

  Men, Mustache, Spurs

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