Quotes About Wit

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

You know, Gilan, sarcasm isn't the lowest form of wit. It's not even wit at all." -Halt

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

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

I don't want to be classed as a humorist. It makes me feel guilty. I've never read a good tough quotable female humorist, and I never was one myself. I couldn't do it. A "smartcracker" they called me, and that makes me sick and unhappy. There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

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.

Indeed I had not much wit, yet I was not an idiot - my wit was according to my years.

There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

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.

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

if anyone present wishes to make me the subject of his wit, I am very much at his service--with my sword--whenever he has leisure.

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

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.

Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.

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.

If you don't think, and you have no wit and you have so many hangups that you can't look beyond your cup of coffee then you're never going to understand what I'm really saying. Because you know what? You're going to shut down and close off before you hear me. If I'm threatening you, you're going to see it the way you need to see it so you can dismiss me.

During the Second War, the U.S.O. sent special issues of the principal American magazines to the Armed Forces, with the ads omitted. The men insisted on having the ads back again. Naturally. The ads are by far the best part of any magazine or newspaper. More pains and thought, more wit and art go into the making of an ad than into any prose feature of press or magazine. Ads are news. What is wrong with them is that they are always good news.

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

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.

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

[on BBC's Sherlock] It's a rare challenge, both for the audience and an actor, to take part in something with this level of intelligence and wit. You have to really enjoy it. It's a form of mental and physical gymnastics.

Humor is the pensiveness of wit.

There is one single fact that one may oppose to all the wit and argument of infidelity; namely, that no man ever repented of being a Christian on his death-bed.

The writings of women are always cold and pretty like themselves. There is as much wit as you may desire, but never any soul.

Truth is disputable; not taste: what exists in the nature of things is the standard of our judgement; what each man feels within himself is the standard of sentiment. Propositions in geometry may be proved, systems in physics may be controverted; but the harmony of verse, the tenderness of passion, the brilliancy of wit, must give immediate pleasure. No man reasons concerning another's beauty; but frequently concerning the justice or injustice of his actions.

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

The best prophet is common sense, our native wit.

From Lucifer to Jerry Sneak there is not an aspect of evil, imperfection, and littleness which can elude the lights of humor or the lightning of wit.

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

Mab Jones' poetry is suffused with a cool wit and a wisdom beyond her years. She is a superb performance poet in the tradition of Joolz Denby and Pam Ayres and, like them, her work is beautifully layered and contains bittersweet depths.

Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit, But God to man doth speak in solitude.

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

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

Pun: A form of wit, to which wise men stoop and fools aspire

Popular music had never had lyrical sophistication of this type [like Bob Dylan]; wit, to be sure, but "Darkness at the break of noon/Shadows even the silver spoon/The handmade blade, the child's balloon/Eclipses both the sun and moon/To understand you know too soon/ There is no sense in trying"? No.

You can fake intelligence, but you can't fake wit.

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.

Sometimes with the most intense pain a paralysis of sensibility occurs. The soul disintegrates--hence the deadly frost--the free power of the mind--the shattering, ceaseless wit of this kind of despair. There is no inclination for anything any more--the person is alone, like a baleful power--as he has no connection with the rest of the world he consumes himself gradually--and in accordance with his own principle he is--misanthropic and misotheos.

The Triumph of Wit is to make your good Nature subdue your Censure; to be quick in seeing Faults, and slow in exposing them. You are to consider, that the invisible thing called a Good Name, is made up of the Breath of Numbers that speak well of you; so that if by a disobliging Word you silence the meanest, the Gale will be less strong which is to bear up your Esteem.

Unlike some men, I had never drunk for boldness or charm or wit; I had used alcohol for precisely what it was, a depressant to check the mental exhilaration produced by extended sobriety.

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.

Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones.

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

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

There are no fools so troublesome as those who have some wit.

Good sense is at the bottom of everything: virtue, genius, wit, talent and taste.