quotations about wit
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
It is no great advantage to possess a quick wit, if it is not correct; the perfection is not speed but uniformity.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Many would live by their Wits, but break for want of Stock.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1750
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
One wit, like a knuckle of ham in soup, gives a zest and flavour to the dish, but more than one serves only to spoil the pottage.
TOBIAS SMOLLETT
Humphrey Clinker
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
Super powers? Pah!!! Who needs those? I'm a Scientist and I use my intellect to overcome my opponents and my razors sharp wit is always good for a few cutting put downs perfect for stopping a gloating madman in the middle of an egotistical rant.
DR. SIGMUND FRAUD
user comments posted on 'The Guardian Guide', January 30, 2016
Wit is of the true Pierian spring, that can make anything of anything.
GEORGE CHAPMAN
Byron's Conspiracy
Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.
DANIEL DEFOE
A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of The True-born Englishman
His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
preface, Jane Eyre
Wit can render instant aid or lasting harm.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Love's Labour's Lost
Where judgment has wit to express it, there's the best orator.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Wit catches of wit, as fire of fire.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters, and Reflections
Wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Quotable Chesterton: A Topical Compilation of the Wit, Wisdom and Satire of G.K. Chesterton
Surprise is so essential an ingredient of wit that no wit will bear repetition.
SYDNEY SMITH
Lectures on Moral Philosophy
The wit of conversation consists more in finding it in others than in showing a great deal yourself. He who goes from your conversation pleased with himself and his own wit, is perfectly well pleased with you.
SAMUEL R. WELS
How to Behave
Wit is better as a seasoning than as a whole dish by itself.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Humor wades across a brook, wit jumps over it.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
I admire wit as I do the wind; when it shakes the trees, it is fine; when it cools the wave, it is refreshing; when it steals over the flowers, it is enchanting; but when it whistles through the keyhole, it is unpleasant.
ANTOINE BRET
attributed, Day's Collacon