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.

Wit must be foiled by wit: cut a diamond with a diamond.

Wit penetrates; humor envelops. Wit is a function of verbal intelligence; humor is imagination operating on good nature.

Reply to wit with gravity, and to gravity with wit.

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.

Good-humor will even go so far as often to supply the lack of wit.

A woman of haughty and fierce carriage, of a nimble wit and active spirit, a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man.

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.

Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are saying precisely thatwhich all think, and in the flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column, with not the infirmity of a doubt.

I'm filled with admiration, delight, and gratitude at discovering James Lasdun's poems in A Jump Start. He has wit, speed, intelligence, a keen eye, precision, and imagination of a high order.

Life in the country teaches one that the really stimulating things are the quiet, natural things, and the really wearisome things are the noisy, unnatural things. It is more exciting to stand still than to dance. Silence is more eloquent than speech. Water is more stimulating than wine. Fresh air is more intoxicating than cigarette smoke. Sunlight is more subtle than electric light. The scent of grass is more luxurious than the most expensive perfume. The slow, simple observations of the peasant are more wise than the most sparkling epigrams of the latest wit.

The good gardener knows with absolute certainty that if he does his part, if he gives the labour, the love, and every aid that his knowledge of his craft, experience of the conditions of his place, and exercise of his personal wit can work together to suggest, that so surely will God give the increase. Then with the honestly-earned success comes the consciousness of encouragement to renewed effort, and, as it were, an echo of the gracious words, 'Well done my good and faithful servant'.

To find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task.

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human 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.

Mere words will not do. They must convey the color, charm, and pulse of life. They must have a private twinkle of wit in them that makes a good-natured noise like laughter through the keyhole of the reader's mind.

We carry our past with us, to wit, the primitive and inferior man with his desires and emotions, and it is only with an enormous effort that we can detach ourselves from this burden. If it comes to a neurosis, we invariably have to deal with a considerably intensified shadow.

I love this book! Cathy Malkasian's Percy Gloom swirls with echoes of cartoon landscapes from the past and present. You can almost hear Percy Gloom's meek, docile little voice. Her writing is so full of wit and charm that we, like the title character, walk dutifully to the edge and fall in. And like Percy, we are rewarded equally with night terrors and secret treasures.

Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.

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.

The thing that makes our friendships so short and changeable is that the qualities and dispositions of the soul are very hard to know, and those of the understanding and wit very easy.

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!

Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.

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.

I 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.

Books fall open, you fall in, delighted where you've never been; hear voices not once heard before, reach world on world through door on door; find unexpected keys to things locked up beyond imaginings. What might you be, perhaps become, because one book is somewhere? Some wise delver into wisdom, wit, and wherewithal has written it. True books will venture, dare you out, whisper secrets, maybe shout across the gloom to you in need, who hanker for a book to read.

I think a lot of people underestimate the physical demands required to be a top model. It's not just what you're doing on set, it's the strength you have to have to survive in a cutthroat industry. It's the quick wit and the quick thinking on your feet in certain situations.

Humor is wit and love.

Behind 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.

Wit does not take the place of knowledge.

Mass communication--wonder as it may be technologically and something to be appreciated and valued--presents us wit a serious daner, the danger of conformism, due to the fact that we all view the same things at the same time in all the cities of the country. (p. 73)

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.

Shoulda sent a thank you note, you little hoe Now Imma wrap your coffin wit a bow

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

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you've a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind.

Freedom, where are you? Who holds you back? [...] The mother of wit and pleasure, Oh freedom!

A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share in another.

Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.

He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without a hilt. The most sparkling and pointed flame of wit flickers and expires against the incombustible walls of her sanctuary.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.

...he had a fascinating technique of gnawing his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, as if his teeth were equipped with trolley tracks, and suddenly grabbing it out and gesticulating wit it before he jammed it back.

There is no such whetstone, to sharpen a good wit and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.

It shall be my pleasure to remedy it. First, it is not your strength or your speed that draws me. It's your...everything. Your laugh, your wit, your emotions and the way they change. Your courage, your sweetness, your near obsessive delight in cookies. Second, you are indeed a prize. You've made me want what no one else ever had. A communion of bodies." -Zacharel to Annabelle

I'd really like to go with you, Agachak. Truly I would...but I just can't." "I don't understand. Why not?" "I'm not allowed to leave home. My mother'd punish me something awful if I did..." "But you're the king." "That doesn't change a thing. I still do what mother says. She tells everybody that I'm the best boy ever when it comes to that." Agachak resisted a powerful urge to change this half-wit into a toad or perhaps a jellyfish.

I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. ... All that interests in any character [is this]: has he (or she) the money to marry with? ... Suicide is more respectable.

Don't fall in love with your wit. Your cleverly turned phrase may not, as you hope, show off how much gray matter you have, especially if the phrase is at someone else's expense.