Half Witted Quotes & Sayings

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. — Henry David Thoreau

This last point is a request to the English-speaking reader. In France, certain half-witted 'commentators' persist in labelling me a 'structuralist'. I have been unable to get it into their tiny minds that I have used none of the methods, concepts, or key terms that characterize structural analysis. I should be grateful if a more serious public would free me from a connection that certainly does me honour, but that I have not deserved. — Michel Foucault

Well, let's see: I started [in music] at nine and quit. Then got back to it when I was twelve. Then I became a party star. In fact, I became a party! — Richard Manuel

I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it. — Henry David Thoreau

When sonneteering Wordsworth re-creates the landing of Mary Queen of Scots at the mouth of the Derwent -
Dear to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed,
The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore
- he unveils nothing less than a canvas by Rubens, baroque master of baroque masters; this is the landing of a TRAGIC Marie de Medicis.
Yet so receptive was the English ear to sheep-Wordsworth's perverse 'Enough of Art' that it is not any of these works of supreme art, these master-sonnets of English literature, that are sold as picture postcards, with the text in lieu of the view, in the Lake District! it is those eternally, infernally sprightly Daffodils. — Brigid Brophy

As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across premieval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle ('Please read this carefully and send it on Jane') the clan has a tendency to ignore me. It's one of the advantages I get from being a bachelor - and, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that. — P.G. Wodehouse

Two voices are there: one is of the deep; It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody, Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep: And one is of an old half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep And, Wordsworth, both are thine. — William Wordsworth

You evidently feel that brevity is the soul of widowhood. — Hector Hugh Munro

These stupid peasants, who, throughout the world, hold potentates on their thrones, make statesmen illustrious, provide generals with lasting victories, all with ignorance, indifference, or half-witted hatred, moving the world with the strength of their arms, and getting their heads knocked together in the name of God, the king, or the stock exchange-immortal, dreaming, hopeless asses, who surrender their reason to the care of a shining puppet, and persuade some toy to carry their lives in his purse. — Stephen Crane

I adore that pink, it is the navy blue of India! — Diana Vreeland

Steerpike was, of course, alive with ideas and projects. These two half-witted women were a gift. That they should be the sisters of Lord Sepulchrave was of tremendous strategic value. They would prove an advance on the Prunesquallors, if not intellectually at any rate socially, and that at the moment was what mattered. And in any case, the lower the mentality of his employers the more scope for his own projects. — Mervyn Peake

Why, you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf herder. — George Lucas

Here in Barcelona, it's the architects who built the buildings that made the city iconic who are the objects of admiration - not a bunch of half-witted monarchs. — Julie Burchill

I know that small-town silence, I'd run into it before, intangible as smoke and solid as stone. We honed it on the British for centuries and it's ingrained, the instinct for a place to close up like a fist when the police come knocking. Sometimes it means nothing more than that; but it's a powerful thing, that silence, dark and tricky and lawless. It still hides bones buried somewhere in the hills, arsenals cached in pigsties. The British underestimated it, fell for the practiced half-witted looks, but I knew and Sam knew: it's dangerous. — Tana French

I see what you think of me,' said he, gravely; 'I shall make but a poor figure in your journal to-morrow.'
My journal!'
Yes; I know exactly what you will say:- Friday went to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings- plain black shoes- appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed me by his nonsense. — Jane Austen

One damn sure thing! - he wasn't going to let them be rough with that Smith lad. He was a nuisance, granted, but he was a nice lad and rather appealing in a helpless, half-witted way. — Robert A. Heinlein

If you take the meaning out of the world, all that's left is controlling each other. — L.T. Vargus

The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run — Herman Melville

It's not an issue. Everyone's focused on us trying to get a victory. That's where the focus lies ... We're trying to win a game. Who cares about that (other stuff). If we'd played 'em two years ago when it happened, maybe it would be different. — Donnie Edwards

He was a likable man: sweet-tempered, ready-witted, frank, without grins of suppressed bitterness or other conversational flavors which make half of us an affliction to our friends. — George Eliot

It's called "Caliban At Sunset".' 'What at sunset?' 'Caliban.' He cleared his throat, and began: I stood with a man Watching the sun go down. The air was full of murmurous summer scents And a brave breeze sang like a bugle From a sky that smouldered in the west, A sky of crimson, amethyst and gold and sepia And blue as blue as were the eyes of Helen When she sat Gazing from some high tower in Ilium Upon the Grecian tents darkling below. And he, This man who stood beside me, Gaped like some dull, half-witted animal And said, 'I say, Doesn't that sunset remind you Of a slice Of underdone roast beef?' He — P.G. Wodehouse

The Story Girl was written in 1910 and published in 1911. It was the last book I wrote in my old home by the gable window where I had spent so many happy hours of creation. It is my own favourite among my books, the one that gave me the greatest pleasure to write, the one whose characters and landscape seem to me most real. All the children in the book are purely imaginary. The old "King Orchard" was a compound of our old orchard in Cavendish and the orchard at Park Corner. "Peg Bowen" was suggested by a half-witted, gypsy-like personage who roamed at large for many years over the Island and was the terror of my childhood. — L.M. Montgomery

I stopped being half-witted and became sly whenever I took the trouble. — Samuel Beckett

They look for a victim to chivy, and howl him down, and finally lynch him in a sheer storm of sexual frenzy which they honestly imagine to be moral indignation, patriotic passion or some equally allowable emotion, it may be an innocent Negro, a Jew like Leo Frank, a harmless half-witted German; a Christ-like idealist of the type of Debs, an enthusiastic reformer like Emma Goldman. — Aleister Crowley

That was thirteen hundred years ago. This is really no improvement upon the work of the Roman augurs. Has the trade of interpreting the Lord's matters gone out, discouraged by the time-worn fact that nobody succeeds at it? No, it still flourishes; there was never a century nor a country that was short of experts who knew the Deity's mind and were willing to reveal it. Whenever there has been an opportunity to attribute to Him reasonings and conduct which would make a half-witted human being ridiculous, there has always been an expert ready and glad to take advantage of it. — Mark Twain

Everybody in New York thinks the Knicks are Playboy bunnies, and I have been telling them for years the Knicks are a rabbit. They're closer to a Playboy bunny this year but for the last few years these guys are like, 'We have a really good team!' And I say, 'You really think that?' And I say, 'No, they don't.' But this is the best team they've had in a while. — Charles Barkley

The rich did not care who ruled, as long as they were allowed to be rich. The poor could not afford to care and nobody asked their opinion in any case. Only the middle class mattered and any half-witted ruler knows how to pamper them. — Anand Neelakantan

Back so soon?" he asked. "Too bad. I was just about to organize a search for your dead body. What happened when you knocked on the southerner magician's door to sacrifice yourself? Did they kick you out, thinking you too half-witted to waste their time on? — Maria V. Snyder

Someone asked me yesterday if Dracula met Saruman and there was a fight, who would win. I just looked at this man. What an idiotic thing to say. I mean, really, it was half-witted. — Christopher Lee

Ossa, Bronwen would learn his name later, had tried to communicate with her, first in Tretorian, then Common--the language shared by most Cordisians--and he even attempted a few phrases from the Northern language, Eirrannian. She had not been scared, nor did she appear much bothered by her injuries. Calm and clear-eyed, Bronwen had stood, leading the men to believe her to be half-witted or dazed from her pain. After his attempts to get the child to — Cat Bruno

It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law ... that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. — H.L. Mencken

When you're photographing anything to do with war and conflict you're photographing something impossible. Everything you do is just clumsy and stupid and half witted. Because it is impossible to portray the full width and breadth of everything that you are up against. — Simon Norfolk

But while nature has considerable resilience, there is a limit to how far that resilience can be stretched. No one knows how close to the limit we are getting. The darker it gets, the faster we're driving — Douglas Adams

She stuffed the goodies into her hidden running belt, jogged out of the park, and went shopping for duct tape, a razor blade, paper clips, and another disposable phone. — Janet Evanovich

What is love worth in this broken world? Nothing!" he spat. "Absolutely nothing. Love won't feed you. Love won't rescue you from starvation. Grow up, Abbey. I didn't raise you to be half-witted and so mentally defective. — Dan C. Thompson