quotations about wit
He depended on his mother wit to get him out of any scrape his father ignorance got him into.
STRICKLAND GILLILAN
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
"The Creative Impulse", Collected Short Stories
Wit gives an edge to sense, and recommends it extremely.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Humor is of earlier growth than Wit, and it is in accordance with this earlier growth that it has more affinity with the poetic tendencies, while Wit is more nearly allied to the ratiocinative intellect. Humor draws its materials from situations and characteristics; Wit seizes on unexpected and complex relations.
GEORGE ELIOT
Essays
Let your wit rather serve you for a buckler to defend yourself, by a handsome reply, than the sword to wound others, though with ever so facetious reproach; remembering that a word cuts deeper than a sharper weapon, and the wound it makes is longer curing.
FRANCIS OSBORNE
Advice to a Son
The well of true wit is truth itself.
GEORGE MEREDITH
Diana of the Crossways
When you have wit of your own, it's a pleasure to credit other people for theirs.
CRISS JAMI
Killosophy
Wit is the clash and reconcilement of incongruities, the meeting of extremes round a corner.
LEIGH HUNT
Wit and Humour, Selected from the English Poets
A witty woman is a treasure; a witty beauty is a power.
GEORGE MEREDITH
Diana of the Crossways
For we seldom admire the wit, when we dislike the man.
JEREMIAH SEED
Discourses on Several Important Subjects
That wit is truly amiable, which gladdens and enlivens every thing, which shines with a lustre gentle, but not faint, and powerful, but not glaring.
JEREMIAH SEED
Discourses on Several Important Subjects
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
Wit is folly, unless a wise man has the keeping of it.
ENGLISH PROVERB
Wit, without wisdom, is like a song without sense, it does not please long.
H. W. SHAW
attributed, Day's Collacon
A fatalistic Irish wit is a famously effective coping mechanism.
JACK MCENENY
"McEneny waiting for words", Albany Times Union, March 11, 2017
A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit;
How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
Wit is an unruly engine, wildly striking sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer.
GEORGE HERBERT
The Temple: The Poetry of George Herbert
Your wit is as sharp as your....um. Hmm. I dunno. Whatever you have that's sharp.
LEAVEWELLENOUGHALONE
user comments posted on slashfilm, February 1, 2016
How every fool can play upon a word! I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence; and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Merchant of Venice
Wit is the rarest quality to be met with among people of education, and the most common among the uneducated.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims