Quotes About Wit

The 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.

Probably there is an imperceptible touch of something permanent that one feels instinctively to adhere to true humour, whereas wit may be the mere conversational shooting up of "smartness"--a bright feather, to be blown into space the second after it is launched...Wit seems to be counted a very poor relation to Humour....Humour is never artificial.

Wit catches of wit, as fire of fire.

All 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.

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.

I do not like to employ secretaries that have more wit than myself. I am afraid to make them write all my nonsense.

He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.

If you put on an Oscar Wilde [play], it will interest those who are interested in Oscar Wilde. But it won't interest anybody else, because they won't get that wit.

...for though she was ordinary, she possessed health, wit, courage, charm, and cheerfulness. But because she was not beautiful, no one ever seemed to notice these other qualities, which is so often the way of the world.

don't try for wit. Settle for humor. You'll last longer.

Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and out American colleges will recede in their public importance whilst they grow richer every year.

We 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.

Writings may be compared to wine. Sense is the strength, but wit the flavor.

Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, But are not critics to their judgment, too?

The Phoenix riddle hath more wit By us, we two being one, are it. So to one neutral thing both sexes fit, We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love.

When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.

Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.

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...

Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.

And I just hope that I'm forgiven for carin bout how they livin and loanin a little money and keepin em outta prison I aint lyin in my verses, I'm just tellin you the basics of growin up wit ya friends and becomin the one that made it

Many of the most successful men I have known have never grown up. They have retained bubbling-over boyishness. They have relished wit, they have indulged in humor. They have not allowed ‘dignity’ to depress them into moroseness. Youthfulness of spirit is the twin brother of optimism, and optimism is the stuff of which American business success is fashioned. Resist growing up!

Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but they have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency.

I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.

A man does not please long when he has only species of wit.

Silence 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.

I 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.

Your wit is always such a delight, Mr. Zeklos. I can barely contain myself around it.

Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say: Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'.

After I published a book called Lincoln's Virtues a wit said that my next book should be Lincoln's Vices. But in my opinion that would be a short book!

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.

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?

Yet here I stand poor fool what more, not one wit wiser than before.

I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.

You know, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.' 'And yet it is still extremely funny.

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.

Our erected wit maketh us to know what perfection is.

Irreverence is easy - whats hard is wit.

Wit and humor seem to always factor into this - there's a tongue-in-cheek tone you get when you take on a formalist story - because there's an inherent voice you're trying to copy (and often to satirize).

We may distinguish six kinds of terrain, to wit: (1) Accessible ground; (2) entangling ground; (3) temporising ground; (4) narrow passes; (5) precipitous heights; (6) positions at a great distance from the enemy.

To many women mistake a man's hostility for wit and his silence for depth.

Sins may be forgiven through repentance, but no act of wit will ever justify them.

These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and their capacity for devotion. You get tired, sometimes, of wit and intellect; everybody's little display of genius.

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.

I'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)

When the wine is in, the wit is out.

Wit goes for the jugular, not the jocular, and it's the opposite of football; instead of building character, it tears it down.

Exposed! shines a harsh light on the myriad horrors of modern society and reports back from the fearful frontlines with wicked wit and paranoid power. From the murky waters of New Orleans to the scarred psyches of our own image-obsessed existence, Exposed! is the last headline we get to read before reality comes tumbling down.