quotations about wit
A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit;
How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Much Ado About Nothing
Wit, without wisdom, is like a song without sense, it does not please long.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
There was a monstrous deal of stupid quizzing and common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.
JANE AUSTEN
letter to Cassandra, April 21, 1805
Where judgment has wit to express it, there's the best orator.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Wit is well-bred insolence.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Wit resembles a coquette; those who the most eagerly run after it are the least favored.
JOSEPH CHENIER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Great wits, like great beauties, look upon mere esteem as a flat insipid thing; nothing less than admiration will content them.
JEREMIAH SEED
Discourses on Several Important Subjects
Wit appreciates wit.
COELIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Wit spares no one.
JEROME USTARIZ
attributed, Day's Collacon
It is as offensive to speak wit in a fool's company, as it would be ill manners to whisper in it; he is displeased at both for the same reason, because he is ignorant of what is said.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Men of superior vivacity and wit, when they take a wrong turn, are generally worse than other men: because wit, consisting in a lively representation of ideas assembled together, gives every sensible object those heightening touches, and that striking imagery, which is unknown to men of slower apprehensions: wit being to sensible objects, what light is to bodies; it does not merely show them as they are in themselves: it gives an adventitious colour, which is not a property inherent in them: it lends them beauties which are not their own.
JEREMIAH SEED
Discourses on Several Important Subjects
Wit, like the Belly, if it be not fed,
Will starve the Members, and distract the Head.
DANIEL DEFOE
A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of The True-born Englishman
At our wittes end.
JOHN HEYWOOD
Proverbs
Ev'n wit's a burthen, when it talks too long.
JOHN DRYDEN
Sixth Satire of Juvenal
Wit malignantly employed is like a crackling fire that with every fresh blaze sends out sparks. Take care that you are not burnt.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
A good wit ill employed is dangerous in a commonwealth.
DEMOSTHENES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit.
EDWARD YOUNG
"Love of Fame, the Universal Passion", The Complete Works, Poetry and Prose of the Rev. Edward Young
The mere wit is only a human bauble. He is to life what bells are to horses--not expected to draw the load, but only to jingle while the horses draw.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Too much wit makes the world rotten.
ALFRED TENNYSON
Idylls of the King