Wit Quotes - page 3

Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner - and then to thinking! ... I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence. (William Hazlitt)
Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference. View quote
William Hazlitt
Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions and it is these people--amongst whom your life is passed--that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire--for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience. View quote
George Eliot
Who can prove Wit to be witty when with deeper ground Dulness intuitive declares wit dull? View quote
George Eliot
I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, nor fancy; but, if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing. View quote
Humphry Davy
And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man's wit, Can well direct him where to look for it. And freely men confess that this world's spent, When in the planets, and the firmament They seek so many new; then see that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all relation: Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot. View quote
John Donne
The Phoenix riddle hath more wit By us, we two being one, are it. So to one neutral thing both sexes fit, We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love. View quote
John Donne
You beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come Knock as you please, there's no body at home. View quote
Alexander Pope
When we look to presumed sources of origin for competing evolutionary explanations of the giraffe's long neck, we find either nothing at all, or only the shortest of speculative conjectures. Length, of course, need not correspond with importance. Garrulous old Polonius, in a rare moment of clarity, reminded us that "brevity is the soul of wit" (and then immediately vitiated his wise observation with a flood of woolly words about Hamlet's Madness.) View quote
Stephen Jay Gould
Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways. (Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux)
To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand. View quote
Ambrose Bierce
Two goddesses now must Cyprus adore; The Muses are ten, and the Graces are four; Stella's wit is so charming, so sweet her fair face, She shines a new Venus, a Muse, and a Grace. View quote
Callimachus
Wit can be beautiful, because it expresses and distils an idea. View quote
Stephen Fry
A cheerful temper, joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured. View quote
Joseph Addison
In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee. View quote
Joseph Addison
Cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom. View quote
Joseph Addison
An eastern contemporary, with a grain of wisdom in its wit, says that "when the whites win a fight, it is a victory, and when the Indians win it, it is a massacre." View quote
L. Frank Baum
Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast. View quote
William Penn
A depressing number of people seem to process everything literally. They are to wit as a blind man is to a forest, able to find every tree, but each one coming as a surprise. View quote
Roger Ebert
Wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line. (John Dryden)
A thing well said will be wit in all languages. View quote
John Dryden
There is not less wit nor invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent. View quote
Pierre Bayle
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line. View quote
Oliver Goldsmith
Indeed I had not much wit, yet I was not an idiot - my wit was according to my years. View quote
Margaret Cavendish