Quotes About Wit

As wit is too hard for power in council, so power is too hard for wit in action.

Jesus and Shakespeare are fragments of the soul, and by love I conquer and incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His virtue,--is not that mine? His wit,--if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit.

The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.

One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do it. So they all limit themselves to these subjects and this vocabulary. My objection is that it is a lack of articulateness. Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. Wit is what these comedians lack.

Whatever has "wit enough to keep it sweet" defies corruption and outlasts all time; but the wit must be of that outward and visible order which needs no introduction or demonstration at our hands.

Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.

The 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.

Borrowed wit is the poorest wit.

In England, wit is at least a profession, if not an art. everything becomes professional there, and even the rogues of that islandare pedants. So are the "wits" there too. They introduce into reality absolute freedom whose reflection lends a romantic and piquant air to wit, and thus they live wittily; hence their talent for madness. They die for their principles.

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.

Mystery writers' conventions are usually good, and this one has been excellent and extremely well prepared and thought out in advance. A lot of people have given their time and their skill, and a good deal of wit, and Anchorage has made us extraordinarily welcome.

Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools: they have need of 'em: wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation, and let father Time shake his glass.

Some men's wit is like a dark lantern, which serves their own turn and guides them their own way, but is never known (according to the Scripture phrase) either to shine forth before men, or to glorify their Father in heaven.

What's up wit these new niggas? And why they think it all come so easy?

When you have wit of your own, it's a pleasure to credit other people for theirs.

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

A heartwarming tale of Christmas past that's chock full of all the wit and hilarity we admire in America's favorite humorist--Mark Twain. Carlo DeVito brings us back one hundred years to a magical time in Twain's family life, revealing a house that's brimming with love and laughter, as well as the profound heartbreaks of life. A Mark Twain Christmas only deepens our understanding and respect for both the man and his work.

I'm a silly guy, I love wit and cynicism and sarcasm.

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

Of all questions, why? is the least pertinent. It begs the question; it assumes the larger part of its own response; to wit, that a sensible response exists.

Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian.

Society develops wit, but its contemplation alone forms genius.

Coffee falls into the stomach... ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop... the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink...

But the mark of American merit in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in eloquence, seems to be a certain grace withoutgrandeur, and itself not new but derivative; a vase of fair outline, but empty,--which whoso sees, may fill with what wit and character is in him, but which does not, like the charged cloud, overflow with terrible beauty, and emit lightnings on all beholders.

Whether it's viewers of the show or readers of my columns and books, I'm consistently impressed with their wit, humor and insight. That goes for about 95 percent of the audience. The other five percent are why the 'Delete' option and restraining orders were invented.

In I Praise My Destroyer, Diane Ackerman demonstrates once again her love for the specific language that rises from the juncture of self and the natural world, and her skillful use of that language. Whether she turns her attention to the act of eating an apricot 'the color of shame and dawn,' or to 'the omnipotence of light,' or to grief when 'All the greens of summer have blown apart,' her linking of unique images, her energetic wit and whimsy, her compassionate investment in life, always bring new pleasures and perceptions to the reader.

Unless man has the wit and the grit to build his civilization on something better than material power, it is surely idle to talk of plans for a stable peace.

What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit!

This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, Which gives men stomach to digest his words With better appetite.

Science is history arranged according to the superstition and taste of the moment. The vocabulary of scholars has no wit, no salt. These heavy tomes have no soul, they are filled with distress.

I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, nor fancy; but, if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing.

True wit has a grave intention.

We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities have been decayed and demolished?

With a title like this-There's a Box in the Garage You Can Beat with a Stick-is there really a whole lot left to say? With cunning and quintessential stealth, with artful restraint, with whats fathering and foxy and filled with intelligence and wit, Michael Teig goes about making what seems to be invisible and unspeakable, the most palpable and important matter in the world.

One should never risk a joke, even of the mildest and most unexceptional charters, except among people of culture and wit.

Just as it is the province of science to find out what the facts of life are, to classify them and use them to verify or discredit whatever theory may have been advanced concerning them, so it is the province of a living theology to be constantly seeking from God the wit and wisdom that will interpret anew and more truly the parable of life.

My father's wit, and my mother's tongue, assist me!

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

Some books we read, tho' few there are that hit the happy point where wisdom joins with wit.

While the laughter of joy is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of mockery, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising wit.

Some 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.

Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark.... In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed. ~Germaine Greer

And new Philosophy calls all in doubt, the element of fire is quite put out; the Sun is lost, and the earth, and no mans wit can well direct him where to look for it.

His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home.

Rob Chilson's mordant wit will keep you turning the pages until the wee hours!

Wit is its own remedy. Liberty and commerce bring it to its true standard. The only danger is the laying an embargo. The same thing happens here as in the case of trade: impositions and restrictions reduce it to a low ebb; nothing is so advantageous to it as a free port.

Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality

Truth and beauty can still win battles. We need more art, more passion, more wit in defense of the Earth.