Popular quotes about Wit! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 12
Fortune, the great commandress of the world, Hath divers ways to advance her followers: To some she gives honor without deserving; To other some, deserving without honor; Some wit, some wealth,--and some, wit without wealth; Some wealth without wit; some nor wit nor wealth.
George ChapmanMethinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.
William ShakespeareThe witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners.
Florence KingIt has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.
Neil GaimanThe greater the stupidity, the greater the clarity. Stupidity is brief and guileless, while wit equivocates and hides. Wit is a scoundrel, while stupidity is honest and sincere.
Fyodor DostoevskyWe do not claim that punning is legitimate wit. Wit consists in combination of ideas, punning in combination of words only. We wonder at the one, but we laugh at the drollery of the other - as the world goes a pun is regarded as an imponderable commodity, all know the rank it holds in the order of pure intellect.
Harriet HosmerI mean everything's a lot more smoother. It's just calm. IN the beginning, I had the typical attitude of a young rapper makin money... ya know I was the partyin guy... I was the guy wit the girls... all the extra that came wit the game...it's up to the artist to know when to say when. You can't live that kind of lifestyle forever. ...I learn from the other people's mistake. I know when to say no. You learn to make the right decisions and pick the right choices. That's all that's really changed.
The Notorious B.I.G.What are the precise characteristics of an epigram it is not easy to define. It differs from a joke, in the fact that the wit of the latter dies in the words, and cannot therefore be conveyed in another language; while an epigram is a wit of ideas, and hence, is translatable. Like aphorisms, songs and sonnets, it is occupied with some single point, small and manageable; but whilst a song conveys a sentiment, a sonnet a poetical, and an aphorism a moral reflection, an epigram expresses a contrast.
William MatthewsAll sentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, wherever a man is conscious of it. But all determinations of the understanding are not right; because they have a reference to something beyond themselves, to wit, real matter of fact; and are not always conformable to that standard.
David HumeHe uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.
William ShakespeareA fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
Philibert Joseph RouxI grow in worth, and wit, and sense, Unboding critic-pen, Or that eternal want of pence, Which vexes public men.
Alfred Lord TennysonGod has laid upon us many severe trials in this world, but He has created labour for us, and all is compensated. Thanks to labour, the bitterest tears are dried; a serious consoler, it always promises less than it bestows; a pleasure unparalleled, it is still the salt of other pleasures. Everything abandons you -- gaiety, wit, love -- labour alone is always present.
Ernest Legouveone thing I donโt need is any more apologies i got sorry greetin me at my front door you can keep yrs i donโt know what to do wit em they donโt open doors or bring the sun back they donโt make me happy or get a mornin paper didnโt nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars cuz a sorry.
Ntozake ShangeThe only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounceit true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn.
Joseph AddisonWe continue, however, to write about important people, prize-winning people, blacks of grandeur, women of great fire, fame or wit. We do not write about ordinary people.
Jonathan KozolThat wit is truly amiable, which gladdens and enlivens every thing, which shines with a lustre gentle, but not faint, and powerful, but not glaring.
Jeremiah SeedAs we celebrate President Reagan's remarkable career and historic legacy, we also celebrate a man of strong character, deep conviction, unforgettable charm, and wonderful wit.
Jim RamstadSweat pants, hair tied, chillin wit no makeup on. That's when you're the prettiest, I hope that you don't take it wrong.
DrakeNeatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.
Agnes Repplier[on BBC's Sherlock] It's a rare challenge, both for the audience and an actor, to take part in something with this level of intelligence and wit. You have to really enjoy it. It's a form of mental and physical gymnastics.
Benedict CumberbatchThe writings of women are always cold and pretty like themselves. There is as much wit as you may desire, but never any soul.
Jean-Jacques RousseauSilence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue; and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.
William HazlittI particularly recollect your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, 'SHE a beauty!--I should as soon call her mother a wit.' But afterwards she seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time." "Yes," replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, "but THAT was only when I first saw her, for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.
Jane AustenA funny person is funny only for so long, but a wit can sit down and go on being spellbinding forever.
Diana VreelandWit, like money, bears an extra value when rung down immediately it is wanted. Men pay severely who require credit.
Douglas William JerroldI 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. MacDonaldI've traveled all over the world for the Institute, but I never dreamed I'd meet someone like you." "Strong?" A chuckle escaped her. "Yes." "Handsome?" "Of course." "Sharp of wit and skilled with a sword?" "Absolutely." An other chuckle. "But I mean a manโฆ friendโฆ guy. Oh, I don't know what to call you!" He savored her amusementโand her earnest words. "Just call me yours. That is all I want to be." (Ashlyn and Maddox)
Gena ShowalterSome brains are barren grounds, that will not bring seed or fruit forth, unless they are well manured with the old wit which is raked from other writers and speakers.
Margaret CavendishHe was my equal in beauty, a paragon of grace and charm, sparkling with wit, and burning with love. I adored him to distraction, to the point of idolatry: I loved him as one can never love twice.
VoltaireI'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do.
Maya AngelouI can only do it if there's humour, wit, comedy and drama. If you can get audiences laughing and then suddenly turn them to tears... it's a weird way of making a living making people cry, but I think it's very exciting to be able to send audiences on a rollercoaster ride.
Nigel ColeWith impeccable prose, dry wit, and uncommon wisdom, Ted Thompson brings to life one family's painful disappointments and powerful resilience. The Land of Steady Habits combines Austen's shrewd mastery of domestic economics with Updike's compassion for the melancholy commuter to make something elegant, fresh, and brilliant.
Maggie ShipsteadWit implies hatred or contempt of folly and crime, produces its effects by brisk shocks of surprise, uses the whip of scorpions and the branding-iron, stabs, stings, pinches, tortures, goads, teases, corrodes, undermines.
Edwin Percy WhippleI'm sorry I stood there like a half-wit, Count Petroff," she told him matter-of-factly, "but I was a bit--surprised. After all, it's not everyday that I see a man who's prettier than I am." (Alexandra)
Johanna LindseySome wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit.
Edward YoungKamby Bolongo Mean River is an original and fearless fiction. It bears genetic traces of Beckett and Stein, but Robert Lopez's powerful cadences and bleak, joyful wit are all his own.
Sam LipsyteBehind every footballing tough guy there lurks a mincing aesthete with a love of art for art's sake, football for football's sake. A win without art is somehow less than a victory; less, almost, than a beautiful defeat. In football, the romantic and the pragmatist are ever at war in the same breast. Beauty, it must be understood here, is not Barcelona's aim but their method. And last night they were ready to use this method at every opportunity - quick-fire passing of wit and purpose in the danger areas, seeking always to produce an unlooked-for player in a position of threat.
Simon BarnesAt most, the greatest persons are but great wens, and excrescences; men of wit and delightful conversation, but as morals for ornament, except they be so incorporated into the body of the world that they contribute something to the sustentation of the whole.
John DonneWhen I stand in a library where is all the recorded wit of the world, but none of the recording, a mere accumulated, and not trulycumulative treasure; where immortal works stand side by side with anthologies which did not survive their month, and cobweb and mildew have already spread from these to the binding of those; and happily I am reminded of what poetry is,--I perceive that Shakespeare and Milton did not foresee into what company they were to fall. Alas! that so soon the work of a true poet should be swept into such a dust-hole!
Henry David Thoreau