Wit Quotes - page 4

And though I might have learnt more wit and advanced my understanding by living in a Court, yet being dull, fearful and bashful, I neither heeded what was said or practised, but just what belonged to my loyal duty and my own honest reputation. (Margaret Cavendish)
You have a ready wit. Tell me when it's ready. View quote
Henny Youngman
It may be said that his wit shines at the expense of his memory. View quote
Alain-René Lesage
There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words. View quote
Dorothy Parker
Wit is the most rascally, contemptible, beggarly thing on the face of the earth. View quote
Arthur Murphy
Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit. View quote
Oscar Wilde
If you have any helpful suggestions I'd be pleased to hear them. If all you can do is make snide insinuations then it would probably benefit all concerned if you bestowed the fruits of your prodigious wit on someone with the spare time to give them the consideration they doubtless deserve. View quote
Iain Banks
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. View quote
Jack Vance
Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
Come sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace, The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, The indifferent judge between the high and low. View quote
Philip Sidney
183. Where the drink goes in there the wit goes out. (George Herbert)
A man of remarkable genius may afford to pass by a piece of wit, if it happens to border on abuse. A little genius is obliged to catch at every witticism indiscriminately. View quote
William Shenstone
Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness. View quote
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it. View quote
James Boswell
At 20 years of age the will reigns at 30, the wit at 40, the judgment. View quote
Benjamin Franklin
Your wit makes others witty. View quote
Catherine II of Russia
Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. View quote
Tom Lehrer
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. View quote
David Hume
There is no estimating the wit and wisdom concealed and latent in our lower fellow mortals until made manifest by profound experiences; for it is through suffering that dogs as well as saints are developed and made perfect. View quote
John Muir
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. View quote
Ray Bradbury
A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful. (Daniel Defoe)
There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof, I hope, there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not understood, it shall be concluded, that something very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character, shall be judged to contain something extraordinary either of wit or sublime. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Don't set your wit against a child. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Lovers be war and tak gude heid about Quhome that ye lufe, for quhome ye suffer paine. I lat yow wit, thair is richt few thairout Quhome ye may traist to have trew lufe agane. View quote
Robert Henryson
It has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none. View quote
Denis Diderot