Wit Quotes - page 5

It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious - to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality - he must once more sink himself in solitude. There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profit; in order to do anything at all we need (so to speak) the wit and ideas of our neighbors as much as the businessmen need the funds of others to win on the market. All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment. (Edgar Degas)
Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
England's genius filled all measure Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure, Gave to the mind its emperor, And life was larger than before: Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit. The men who lived with him became Poets, for the air was fame. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I enjoy darker sardonic wit more than knock-knock jokes. I spent the first healthy chunk of my career playing all-American, pleasant, average, nice people, so it's fun to have some complications there. View quote
Neil Patrick Harris
There are two things in ordinary conversation which ordinary people dislike - information and wit. View quote
Stephen Leacock
The next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to quote another's wit. View quote
Christian Nestell Bovee
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
Edward FitzGerald (poet)
It is having in some measure a sort of wit to know how to use the wit of others. View quote
Stanisław Leszczyński
It is of no use to possess a lively wit if it is not of the right proportion: the perfection of a clock is not to go fast, but to be accurate. View quote
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues
The old notion that brevity is the essence of wit has succumbed to the modern idea that tedium is the essence of quality. (Russell Baker)
I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke, That hath but on hole for to sterten to. View quote
Geoffrey Chaucer
Some grief shows much of love; But much of grief shows still some want of wit. View quote
William Shakespeare
I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. View quote
William Shakespeare
Die Hard represents the class of modern action pictures and the standard by which they must be judged. Few films falling into the "mindless entertainment" genre have as much going for them as this movie. Not only is it a thrill-a-minute ride, but it has one of the best film villains in recent memory, a hero everyone can relate to, dialogue that crackles with wit, and a lot of very impressive pyrotechnics. View quote
James Berardinelli
Men have begun to observe and classify, they turn from creation to Criticism... It is the Fashion to be a wit... one must be able to conceal indecency with elegant diction; manners are everything, morals nothing. View quote
James Branch Cabell
No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit. View quote
Leo Tolstoy
Wit and wisdom are born with a man. View quote
John Selden
Young gentlemen with literary aspirations usually start a new university magazine, which for wit and pungency is designed to eclipse all such previous efforts, and I was no exception in the matter of this popular gambit. View quote
E. F. Benson
Many consider that Shostakovich is the greatest 20th-century composer. In his 15 symphonies, 15 quartets, and in other works he demonstrated mastery of the largest and most challenging forms with music of great emotional power and technical invention...All his works are marked by emotional extremes – tragic intensity, grotesque and bizarre wit, humour, parody, and savage sarcasm. View quote
Dmitri Shostakovich
To aspire to be superhuman is a most discreditable admission that you lack the guts, the wit, the moderating judgment to be successfully and consummately human. (Aldous Huxley)
Humour is consistent with pathos, whilst wit is not. View quote
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Let each man have the wit to go his own way. View quote
Propertius
There is no such whetstone, to sharpen a good wit and encourage a will to learning, as is praise. View quote
Roger Ascham
And the world said, Child, you will not be missed. You are cheaper than a wrench, your back is a road; Your death is a table in a book. You had our wit, our heart was sealed to you: Man is the judgment of the world. View quote
Randall Jarrell