Quotes About Wit

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.

Wit must be without effort. Wit is play, not work; a nimbleness of the fancy, not a laborious effort of the will; a license, a holiday, a carnival of thought and feeling, not a trifling with speech, a constraint upon language, a duress upon words.

In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except that it be that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it.

Not a time with him passed that I didn't say, "You should've been a comedian." [Vincent Price] was hilarious. He was just such a quick, funny wit. I don't think most people would think that about him, and it was really surprising to me. But man, the guy had a brilliant wit.

Most of you probably didn't know that I have a new book out. Some guy put together a collection of my wit and wisdom - or, as he calls it, my accidental wit and wisdom. But I'm kind of proud that my words are already in book form.

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

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

Wit and wisdom differ; wit is upon the sudden turn, wisdom is bringing about ends.

One should have wit, but not wish to have it; otherwise there will be witticism, the Alexandrian style of wit.

If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.

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.

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.

I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries; that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are min

A man's reception depends upon his coat; his dismissal upon the wit he shows.

Imyself haveheard averygood jest, and havescornedto seem to have so sillya wit as to understand it.

I have a different idea of elegance. I don't dress like a fop, it's true, but my moral grooming is impeccable. I never appear in public with a soiled conscience, a tarnished honor, threadbare scruples, or an insult that I haven't washed away. I'm always immaculately clean, adorned with independence and frankness. I may not cut a stylish figure, but I hold my soul erect. I wear my deeds as ribbons, my wit is sharper then the finest mustache, and when I walk among men I make truths ring like spurs.

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.

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.

Man, I've been to jail. It was hell in there, but I survived, If they put me back, I'll come out again. I'm one of the world's great survivors. I'll always survive because I've got the right combination of wit, grit and bullshit.

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.

Picture perfect, I paint a perfect picture bomb the hoochies wit' precision, my intentions to get richer.

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...

Humor is the pensiveness of wit.

What I wanted to do was slap him down a bit with wit and words. Grammar and vocabulary as a weapon. But what kind of world would it be if we all took every opportunity presented to us to assault the weak?

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!

Women ought not to know their own wit, because they will still be showing it, and so spoil it.

Wit loses its point when dipped in malice.

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.

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!

In Paris, you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals, and in Florence you learn poise.

Some 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.

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

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 have wit in my work and a sense of humor, but I do not use irony in any way

Three year sof unconditional MFN have not lead to any subtantial improvement in human rights, trade and nuclear proliferation practice of the Chinese government. In addition to the trade barriers, China has marred our trade relationship wit prison labor or export and other unfair trade practices.

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.

Irreverence is easy - whats hard is wit.

So much of the humor on new sitcoms plays to the lowest common denominator. Wit isn't nearly given as much attention as slipping on a banana peel. So much of the writing is so coarse, so obvious that it doesn't provide a shock, never mind a laugh. What makes something funny is alluding to it without laying it out explicitly. You let the audiences fill in the gaps and that's where the laughs come.

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

I like men with quick wit, good conversation and a great sense of humour. I love banter. I want a man to like me for me - I want him to be authentic.

Over his illustrious career, John Harris has explored the most challenging bioethical questions with insight, engaging wit, and eloquence. In Enhancing Evolution, Harris does it again. He argues that it is not just an option but an obligation for people to use available biomedical technologies to enhance their own--and their children's--physical and mental abilities. Harris rightly deserves his reputation for fearlessly following his ethical arguments wherever they lead.

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

The greatest advantage I know of being thought a wit by the world is, that it gives one the greater freedom of playing the fool.

When the wine is in, the wit is out.

Beauty without wit offers nothing but the enjoyment of its material charms, whilst witty ugliness captivates by the charms of the mind, and at last fulfils all the desires of the man it has captivated.

There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of punning.

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand; and through the lust of human wit obscure things are more easily credited.