Quotes About Wit

The best thing next to wit is a consciousness that it is not in us; without wit, a man might then know how to behave himself, so as not to appear to be a fool or a coxcomb.

But pure wit is akin to Puritanism; to the perfect and painful consciousness of the final fact in the universe. Very briefly, the man who sees the consistency in things is a wit - and a Calvinist. The man who sees the inconsistency in things is a humorist - and a Catholic.

Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.

Wit is the appearance, the external flash, of fantasy. Hence its divinity and the similarity to the wit of mysticism.

Any discussion of the problems of being funny in America will not make sense unless we substitute the word wit for humor. Humor inspires sympathetic good-natured laughter and is favored by the healing-power gang. Wit goes for the jugular, not the jocular, and it's the opposite of football; instead of building character, it tears it down.

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.

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?.

New technologies make it possible for even the mass marketer to assume the role of a small proprietor, doing business again wit individuals, one at a time.

Wit thou well that I will not live long after thy days.

Wit is often a mask. If you tear it you will find either genius irritated or cleverness juggling.

In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all your heroism, not all your social charm, not all your wit, not all your victories on land or at sea, can move back the finger of fate. To-day we maintain ourselves. To-morrow science will have moved forward yet one more step, and there will be no appeal from the judgment which will then be pronounced on the uneducated.

It is often a sign of wit not to show it, and not to see that others want it.

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

Men of humor are always in some degree men of genius; wits are rarely so, although a man of genius may, amongst other gifts, possess wit, as Shakespeare.

I have long admired Caroline Leavitt's probing insight into people, her wit and compassion, her ability to find humor in dark situations, and conversely, her tenderness towards characters.

I write. I have read a great deal. I enjoy books. I like the wit of languages. Even French I like. I like to be able to think in different modes. I like to be able to use the language a great deal and carry on rehearsals in French.

Artists must be men of wit, consciously or unconsciously philosophers; read, study and think a great deal of life.

Wit can be beautiful, because it expresses and distills an idea.

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...

Wit is a weapon. Jokes are a masculine way of inflicting superiority. But humor is the pursuit of a gentle grin, usually in solitude.

Pushing me away so I give her space, awww. Dealing wit a heart that I didn't break.

The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humour and so little wit in their literature.

It is inconceivable how much wit it requires to avoid being ridiculous.

Many live by their wits but few by their wit.

Any expensive ad represents the toil, attention, testing, wit, art, and skill of many people. Far more thought and care go into the composition of any prominent ad in a newspaper or magazine than go into the writing of their features and editorials.

There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof, I hope, there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not understood, it shall be concluded, that something very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character, shall be judged to contain something extraordinary either or wit of sublime.

The wit of a graduate student is like champagne. Canadian champagne.

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

Humor is wit and love.

Breakin down the weed about to make a plane, a hundred niggas wit me all reppin taylor gang.

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

Hudibras has defined nonsense, as Cowley does wit, by negatives. Nonsense, he says, is that which is neither true nor false. These two great properties of nonsense, which are always essential to it, give it such a peculiar advantage over all other writings, that it is incapable of being either answered or contradicted.

Who would not give up wit for power and beauty?

I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools.

When 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!

Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.

A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit.

At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is more honorably distinguished for fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling.

That night as I lay in bed, I thought of several things I could have said and mourned the fact that my wit usually bloomed late, peaking when it no longer mattered, during the solitary hours close to midnight.

[On Thomas Seymour's death:] This day died a man of much wit and very little judgment.

Depending upon shock tactics is easy, whereas writing a good play is difficult. Pubic hair is no substitute for wit.

Resounding…with wit, courage, and compassion. Skinny will speak to everyone who has ever felt invisible or unlovable.

A wise man will live as much within his wit as within his income.

sloughing my skin / escaping it's grip / stripped of my wit / it hurts to be me .

Wit ought to be a glorious treat like caviar; never spread it about like marmalade.

If brevity is the soul of wit then brevity and levity are the whole of it.

Humor is the truth; wit is an exaggeration of the truth.