Wit Quotes - page 11

An aphorism is not a cliche: it penetrates & bites. It has wit, and consequently an affinity with satire...Christ speaks in aphorisms, not because they are alive, but because he is. (Northrop Frye)
Facts are but the Play-things of lawyers, - Tops and Hoops, forever a-spin... Alas the Historian may indulge no such idle Rotating. History is not Chronology, for that is left to lawyers, - nor is it Remembrance, for Remembrance belongs to the People. History can as little pretend to the Veracity of the one, as claim the Power of the other, - her Practitioners, to survive, must soon learn the arts of the quidnunc, spy, and Taproom Wit, - that there may ever continue more than one life-line back into a Past we risk, each day, losing our forebears in forever, - not a Chain of single Links, for one broken Link could lose us All, - rather, a great disorderly Tangle of Lines, long and short, weak and strong, vanishing into the Mnemonick Deep, with only their Destination in Common. View quote
Thomas Pynchon
I am old. I am young. I am Gwion, I am universal, I am possessed of penetrating wit. View quote
Taliesin
Farewell, woman! I intend Henceforth every night to sit With my lewd, well-natured friend, Drinking to engender wit. View quote
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. View quote
Omar Khayyám
The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it. View quote
Omar Khayyám
There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit. View quote
Jane Austen
Nevere yit Was non, which half so loste his wit Of drinke, as thei of such thing do Which cleped is the jolif wo. View quote
John Gower
Bot for men sein, and soth it is, That who that al of wisdom writ It dulleth ofte a mannes wit To him that schal it aldai rede, For thilke cause, if that ye rede, I wolde go the middel weie And wryte a bok betwen the tweie, Somwhat of lust, somewhat of lore. View quote
John Gower
Wit must be foiled by wit: cut a diamond with a diamond. View quote
William Congreve
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. (William Congreve)
Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools: they have need of 'em: wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation, and let father Time shake his glass. View quote
William Congreve
A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect. View quote
Charles Lamb
Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not. View quote
Francis Bacon
The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men. View quote
Francis Bacon
It is not the pleasure of curiosity, nor the quiet of resolution, nor the raising of the spirit, nor victory of wit, nor faculty of speech ... that are the true ends of knowledge ... but it is a restitution and reinvesting, in great part, of man to the sovereignty and power, for whensoever he shall be able to call the creatures by their true names, he shall again command them. View quote
Francis Bacon
If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics. View quote
Francis Bacon
For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
I marvel'd how Man, by his GOD-sent wit, Thus tam'd the salamander Element And loos'd the Metal in the mountain pent To make us Saws, and Shears, and useful Plows, Swords for our hands, and Helmets for our brows, The surgeon's Scalpel, vehicle of Health, And all our humble Tools for gaining wealth... ”De Arte Munificente,” Seventeenth century. View quote
John Brunner
While the laughter of joy is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of mockery, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising wit. View quote
Lewis Carroll
I have found nothing half so good As my long-planned half solitude, Where I can sit up half the night With some friend that has the wit Not to allow his looks to tell When I am unintelligible. (William Butler Yeats)
You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come; Knock as you please, there's nobody at home. View quote
Jonathan Swift
If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly. View quote
Michel de Montaigne
Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness. Luck seldom measures swords with wisdom. Most things in life quick wit and sharp vision can set right. View quote
Democritus