quotations about wit
Wit is usually thought rude by its victims.
GARY TAYLOR
Moment by Moment by Shakespeare
We take life too seriously: the office of wit is to correct this tendency.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Much Ado About Nothing
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
Brevity is the soul of wit.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
Make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit;
How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism
Wit gives an edge to sense, and recommends it extremely.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry IV, Part II
Every witticism is an inexact thought; that which is perfectly true is imperfectly witty.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans
Wit is the most rascally, contemptible, beggarly thing on the face of the earth.
COLLEY CIBBER
attributed, Encyclopædia of Quotations
When you have wit of your own, it's a pleasure to credit other people for theirs.
CRISS JAMI
Killosophy
Wit is an unruly engine, wildly striking sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer.
GEORGE HERBERT
The Temple: The Poetry of George Herbert
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 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
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
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
FRANCIS BACON
Essex's Device
For we seldom admire the wit, when we dislike the man.
JEREMIAH SEED
Discourses on Several Important Subjects