quotations about wit
A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit;
How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
A man of remarkable genius may afford to pass by a piece of wit, if it happen to border on abuse. A little genius is obliged to catch at every witticism indiscriminately.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
Wit is usually thought rude by its victims.
GARY TAYLOR
Moment by Moment by Shakespeare
This is that gross sort of raillery, which is so offensive in good company. And indeed there is as much difference between one sort and another, as between fair-dealing and hypocrisy; or between the genteelest wit, and the most scurrilous buffoonery. But by the freedom of conversation this illiberal kind of wit will lose its credit. For wit is its own remedy. Liberty and commerce bring it to its true standard.
ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Volume 1
We take life too seriously: the office of wit is to correct this tendency.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
FRANCIS BACON
Essex's Device
Wit is folly, unless a wise man has the keeping of it.
ENGLISH PROVERB
Those who object to wit are envious of it.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims
The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Some of the wit is clumsy and coarse. But sometimes it takes a blunt instrument to make a point.
DAVID PARKINSON
"Catfight Review", Empire Online, March 10, 2017
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
"The Creative Impulse", Collected Short Stories
Wit is an unruly engine, wildly striking sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer.
GEORGE HERBERT
The Temple: The Poetry of George Herbert
When you have wit of your own, it's a pleasure to credit other people for theirs.
CRISS JAMI
Killosophy
We find ourselves less witty in remembering what we have said than in dreaming of what we would have said.
JEAN PETIT
attributed, Day's Collacon
The effect of wit is sometimes so sudden that it almost amounts to a concussion, and most generally excites a disposition to laughter.
HORACE PETERS BIDDLE
A Few Poems
Brevity is the soul of wit.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
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
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
It is as offensive to speak wit in a fool's company, as it would be ill manners to whisper in it; he is displeased at both for the same reason, because he is ignorant of what is said.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry IV, Part II