Jest Quotes & Sayings

He swatted at her with his book. "Shut up and read, will you?"
He lay back down and closed his eyes. Emma glanced over to check that he was smiling, and smiled too. — David Nicholls

Certain streets have an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fame and the particular affection of their citizens. One of such streets is the Cannebiere, and the jest: "If Paris had a Cannebiere, it would be a little Marseilles" is the jocular expression of municipal pride. I, too, I have been under the spell. For me it has been a street leading into the unknown. — Joseph Conrad

If you are affronted it is better to pass it by in silence, or with a jest, though with some dishonor, than to endeavor revenge. If you can keep reason above passion, that and watchfulness will be your best defenders. — Isaac Newton

The boys throw rocks at the frogs in jest. But the frogs die in earnest. — Wilfred Bion

LEIA Thou truly art in jest. Art thou not small Of stature, if thou art a stormtrooper? Does Empire shrink for want of taller troops? The Empire's evil ways, I'll grant, are grand, But must its soldiers want for fear of height? — Ian Doescher

Life bullies us son, but God don't. He had good reasons for fixin' it where if'n you git too sick or too hurt to live, why, you can die, same as a sick chicken. I've knowed a few really sick chickens to git well, and lots a-folks git well thet nobody ever thought to see out a-bed agin cept in a coffin. Still and all, common sense tells you this much: everwhat makes a wheel run over a track will make it run over a boy if'n he's in the way. If'n you'd a got kilt, it'd mean you jest didn't move fast enough, like a rabbit that gits caught by a hound dog ... When it comes to prayin' we got it all over the other animals, but we ain't no different when it comes to livin' and dyin'. If'n you give God the credit when somebody don't die, you go'n blame Him when they do die? Call it His Will? Ever noticed we git well all the time and don't die but once't? Thet has to mean God always wants us to live if'n we can. — Olive Ann Burns

I say that in jest a little bit, but Donald Trump is a blue collar guy with a balance sheet. That's the way he likes to have fun. — Donald Trump Jr.

You have my heart, Jest. I don't know if you deserve it or not. I can't tell if you're a hero or a villain, but it doesn't seem to matter. Either way, my heart is yours. — Marissa Meyer

On a certain afternoon of July, at the tawniest hour, on Galvez Island, the earth -- the tilting spinning earth -- was unearthly. There is no accounting for this adequacy, this splendor that overtakes you. You lack neither flour nor oil while the famine lasts. On a certain afternoon, at a certain hour, the earth is earth no longer, but a fragment of eternity. And you, greenhorn jest of time, are a fragment of eternity too. — Benjamin Taylor

As true as God's own word is true; Nor earth, nor hell, with all their crew, Against us shall prevail. A jest, and by-word, are they grown; God is with us, we are his own, Our victory cannot fail. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The artist is often misunderstood because, stepping outside himself and holding most details in great tension, he's about as complex as a shape-shifter; or a head with faces on all sides, but not necessarily in the negative connotation as one being two-faced usually implies. For instance, to be misunderstood can mean to be improperly deemed a troublemaker when that is not one's true intent: you see, to troublemakers, the artist knows that the peacemaker may seem like a troublemaker; therefore he may, whether in honesty or in jest, at times, present himself as a troublemaker for perceptual, artistic flair. But then to the artless peacemakers, because of this they will interpret him as a troublemaker. This is why the artist has so few allies. To the troublemakers he's a troublemaker, yet still the peacemakers a troublemaker. — Criss Jami

War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Question: What is he? Answer: A sluggard; how very pleasant it would have been to hear that of oneself! It would mean that I was positively defined, it would mean that there was something to say about me. "Sluggard" - why, it is a calling and vocation, it is a career. Do not jest, it is so. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Infinite Jest not only says that being human is hard work; it makes us work hard. It not only suggests we put ourselves in service to something larger than ourselves; it is one of those larger somethings. That's its rhetorical genius, and is how Wallace gets his self-help "to fly at such a high altitude": Like AA, it is theory and praxis in a single stroke. Or: It is what it says, which may be the purest form of art. — Garth Risk Hallberg

If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

Ain't the best prayin' jest bein' with God and talkin' a while, like He's a good friend, stead a-like he runs a store and you've come in a-hopin' to git a bargain? — Olive Ann Burns

This is what we do. Not so much argue as joust, in jest. We can't stop pushing and pulling the taffy of words and concepts. — Larry Duberstein

Last spring, David had offered this crazy solution to our woes, only half in jest: ... "What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And then we could spend our lives together- in misery, but happy to not be apart." Let it be a testimony to how desperately I love this guy that I have spent the last ten months giving that offer serious consideration. The other alternative in the backs of our minds, of course, was that one of us might change. He might become more open and affectionate, not withholding himself from anyone who loves him on the fear that she will eat his soul. Or I might learn how to ... stop trying to eat his soul. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Those who can least bear a jest upon themselves, will be most diverted with one passed on others. — Samuel Richardson

My Own Epitaph
Life's a jest, and all things show it.
I thought so once, and now I know it. — John Gay

Life is too transcendentally humorous for a man not to take it seriously. Compared with it, Death is but a shallow jest. — William John Locke

He who does not like you will defame you in jest. — Richard Schickel

Oh, don't sit there blushin, he says, git on with it. Life's too short. Take her off in the bushes, my friend, an make her yer own. If you don't, somebody else will. Hell, I might jest make a play fer her myself. That 'ud put a rocket in yer pocket. Ha ha! How's about it, Red? You an me? — Moira Young

Remember Henry Adam's jest that the succession of presidents from Washington to Grant disproved the theory of evolution? — George Will

Now that your speech impediment has been rectified, perhaps you might say something. It would be best if it were humorous. I enjoy a good jest.'

'You are dreadfully rude,' I said to him.

He sighed. 'That wasn't the slightest bit funny. — Danielle L. Jensen

I know it's selfish of me to even think of sayin this. You deserve a guy who'll ... pluck the stars from the sky and lay 'em at yer feet. I'm the kinda guy who'd step on 'em on my way out the door. I ain't got nuthin to offer you. He takes my hands in his. I jest want you to know that ... How I feel about you ain't changed. No. That ain't true. It has changed. It's grown stronger. He touches my face. You run deep in me Saba. — Moira Young

The things about which we most often jest are generally, on the contrary, the things that worry us but that we do not wish to appear to be worried by, with perhaps a secret hope of the further advantage that the person to whom we are talking, hearing us treat the matter as a joke, will conclude that it is not true. — Marcel Proust

His jest shall savour but a shallow wit, when thousands more weep than did laugh it. — William Shakespeare

I had to face: I had chosen. My choice, this was love. I had chosen I think the way out of the chains of the cage. I needed this woman. Without her to choose over myself, there was only pain and not choosing, rolling drunkenly and making fantasies of death. — David Foster Wallace

I really, really love children and I think probably among children is when I feel mostly berated. It's not like I feel like oh, there's some children here. I have to tone it down. I go nuts with children especially when I ain't got none. So when I'm round my mates' children, I jest them kids up first. I swear at them, I get more worked up, I say crazy stuff to them, fill their heads with nonsense and then I leave them. — Russell Brand

The universe does not jest with us, but is in earnest. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man's life is but a jest,
A dream, a shadow, bubble, air, a vapor at the best. — George Walter

But jest apart
what virtue canst thou trace
In that broad trim that hides thy sober face?
Does that long-skirted drab, that over-nice
And formal clothing, prove a scorn of vice?
Then for thine accent
what in sound can be
So void of grace as dull monotony? — George Crabbe

AS the falling rain prepares the earth for the future crops of grain and fruit, so the rains of many sorrows showering upon the heart prepare and mellow it for the coming of that wisdom that perfects the mind and gladdens the heart. As the clouds darken the earth but to cool and fructify it, so the clouds of grief cast a shadow over the heart to prepare it for nobler things. The hour of sorrow is the hour of reverence. It puts an end to the shallow sneer, the ribald jest, the cruel calumny; it softens the heart with sympathy, and enriches the mind with thoughtfulness. Wisdom is mainly recollection of all that was learned by sorrow. Do not think that your sorrow will remain; it will pass away like a cloud. Where self ends, grief passes away. — James Allen

A jest often decides matters of importance more effectively and happily than seriousness. — Horace

For it is not Histories that I am writing, but Lives; and in the most illustrious deeds there is not always a manifestation of virtue or vice, nay, a slight thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of character than battles where thousands fall, or the greatest armaments, or sieges of cities. — Plutarch

The essence of obscenity is the turning of the inner mystery into a jest. — Fulton J. Sheen

Probably they had good reason for omitting it. A profane mind might make a jest of an apostle half seas over, and ridicule an apostolic gate-keeper who couldn't keep his head above water. — Charles Bradlaugh

I have a better idea,' said she. 'Know that under a mortal name am I mistress of the Palace of Kama in Khaipur.'
'The Fornicatorium, madam?'
She frowned. 'As such is it often known to the vulgar, and do not call me 'madam' in the same breath
it smacks of ancient jest. It is a place of rest, pleasure, holiness and much of my revenue. — Roger Zelazny

I have never injured anybody with a mordant poem; my
verse contains charges against nobody. Ingenuous, I have
shunned wit steeped in venom
not a letter of mine is dipped
in poisonous jest. — Ovid

He had finished and collected the three years of drafts [of Infinite Jest], and finally sat down and typed the whole thing. Wallace didn't really type; he input the giant thing twice, with one finger. But a really fast finger. — David Lipsky

It has been said, and only half in jest, that a tough, professionally led union is a great force for improving management performance. It forces the manager to think about what he is doing and to be able to explain his actions and behavior. — Peter Drucker

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead. — Jonathan Swift

Often when I thought I joked, I told the truth, afraid to speak it except in jest. — Lucy Freeman

Then again we find that young girls in their hearts regard their domestic or other affairs as secondary things, if not as a mere jest. Love, conquests, and all that these include, such as dressing, dancing, and so on, they give their serious attention. — Arthur Schopenhauer

A prison! heav'ns, I loath the hated name,
Famine's metropolis, the sink of shame,
A nauseous sepulchre, whose craving womb
Hourly inters poor mortals in its tomb;
By ev'ry plague and ev'ry ill possess'd,
Ev'n purgatory itself to thee 's a jest. — Tom Brown Jr.

Thou truly art in jest. Art thou not small/Of stature, if thou art a stormtrooper?
-Leia Organa — Ian Doescher

A lot of truth is said in jest. — Eminem

It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning. They shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid the general applause from all the wits who believe that it is a joke. — Soren Kierkegaard

[The entire text of Infinite Jest.] — David Foster Wallace

Listen closely as those around you speak; great truths are revealed in jest. — Javan

I don't know a soul who couldn't see a fool jest by lookin' in the glass. I been one myself, once't or twice't. So hesh up now. Cryin' ain't go'n do no good. — Olive Ann Burns

Some things are jest too big to fergive. — Moira Young

I always jest to people, the Oval Office is the kind of place where people stand outside, they're getting ready to come in and tell me what for, and they walk in and get overwhelmed in the atmosphere, and they say, man, you're looking pretty. — George W. Bush

He wil sooner lose his best friend, then his least jest. — Ben Jonson

Raillery is more insupportable than wrong; because we have a right to resent injuries, but are ridiculous in being angry at a jest. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

It is not histories I am writing, but lives; and in the most glorious deeds there is not always an indication of virtue or vice, indeed a small thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of a character than battles where thousands die. — Plutarch

Bees are not as busy as we think they are. They jest can't buzz any slower. — Kin Hubbard

You do not mind my humor?"
"Not at all. I've not laughed like this ... " His brows drew together. "I think I've never laughed like this."
"Usually I exasperate people. And I jest at inappropriate times. Such as during executions. Freya says 'tis my gift and my bane to frustrate others."
"I like your manner, Reginleit. Life is long without humor. — Kresley Cole

I am never serious, and therefore I have to make jokes do duty both for jest and earnest. — Franz Kafka

We must consider what is the time for singing, what the time for play, and in whose presence: what will be unsuited to the occasion; whether our companions are to despise us, or we to despise ourselves: when to jest, and whom to mock at: and on what occasion to be conciliatory and to whom: in a word, how one ought to maintain one's character in society. Wherever you swerve from any of these principles, you suffer loss at once; not loss from without, but issuing from the very act itself. — Epictetus

Ye know, Cork Courrant-Porky Implant. Tis a jest" Ian — Kerrelyn Sparks

Jest becuz I'm nine, don't mean I'm a stupid little kid. — Moira Young

I lose my respect for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when you speak earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent. — Henry David Thoreau

Know, O beloved, that man was not created in jest or at random, but marvelously made and for some great end. Although he is not form everlasting, yet he lives for ever; and though his body is mean and earthly, yet his spirit is lofty and divine — Al-Ghazali

Many a true word hath been spoken in jest. — William Shakespeare

You ask: What is it that philosophers have called qualitative states? I answer, only half in jest: As Louis Armstrong said when asked what jazz is, 'If you got to ask, you ain't never gonna get to know.' — Ned Block

He's got one thick book. He's in the middle of Infinite Jest. You ever heard of it? — Gabrielle Zevin

It is a melancholy consideration that there should be several among us so hardened and deluded as to think an oath a proper subject for a jest; and to make this, which is one of the most solemn acts of religion, an occasion of mirth. Yet such is the depravation of our manners at present, that nothing is more frequent than to hear profligate men ridiculing, to the best of their abilities, these sacred pledges of their duty and allegiance; and endeavouring to be witty upon themselves, for daring to prevaricate with God and man. — Joseph Addison

Infinite Jest is a masterpiece," Harvey had said. "Infinite Jest is an endurance contest. You manage to get through it and you have no choice but to say you like it. Otherwise, you have to deal with the fact that you just wasted weeks of your life," A.J. — Gabrielle Zevin

Wiv difficulty 'an injinuity. Jest bein' smart, like. — Jennifer Worth

I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you're just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there's not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name — Andre Aciman

Where there is happiness, there is found pleasure in nonsense. The transformation of experience into its opposite, of the suitable into the unsuitable, the obligatory into the optional (but in such a manner that this process produces no injury and is only imagined in jest), is a pleasure; ... — Friedrich Nietzsche

Man is a living lie
a bitter jest Upon himself
a conscious grain of sand Lost in a desert of unconsciousness. — Amos Bronson Alcott

The witnesses of Hester Prynne's disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Never injure a friend, even in jest. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? — William Shakespeare

If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips. — Robert Jordan

O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible, As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple. — William Shakespeare

Some had rather lose their friend then their Jest. — George Herbert

Colonel Sven Haverstrom of the Dalbreck Royal Guard, Assigned Steward of Crown Prince Jaxon. The others laughed at that title. They were free with their jest and jabs, even with an officer who outranked them, but Sven gave it back as good as he got it.
Officer Jeb McCance, Falworth Special Forces.
Officer Tavish Baird, Tactician, Fourth Battalion.
Officer Orrin del Aransas, Falworth First Archer Assault Unit. — Mary E. Pearson

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest. — Henry David Thoreau

There is no wonder, no amazement, quite like that felt when something supposed for amusement's sake to be magical and mysterious actually manifests the properties imagination has assigned it in jest
when the toy pistol shoots real bullets, the wishing well grants actual wishes, lovers from down the street fling themselves into Death's bright arms from Lovers' Leap — Gene Wolfe

In later years, it would become fashionable to say of the missionaries, "They came to the islands to do good, and they did right well." Others made jest of the missionary slogan, "They came to a nation in darkness; they left it in light," by pointing out: "Of course they left Hawaii lighter. They stole every goddamned thing that wasn't nailed down. — James A. Michener

Z - ds! damn the lock! 'fore Gad, you must be civil! Plague on't!'t is past a jest - nay prithee, pox! Give her the hair" - he spoke, and rapp'd his box. — Alexander Pope

Timid or arrogant, Charming or infuriating, and Catherine was falling, falling, falling. — Marissa Meyer

The more he saw, the more he doubted. He watched men narrowly, and saw how, beneath the surface, courage was often rashness; and prudence, cowardice; generosity, a clever piece of calculation; justice, a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus vivendi; and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see that those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just, generous, prudent or brave were held cheaply by their fellow-men.
'What a cold-blooded jest!' said he to himself. 'It was not devised by a God.'
From that time forth he renounced a better world, and never uncovered himself when a Name was pronounced, and for him the carven saints in the churches became works of art — Honore De Balzac

I don't believe that there is a human creature in his senses, arrived to maturity, that at some time or other has not been carried away by this passion (sc. envy) in good earnest; yet I never met with any one who dared own he was guilty of it but in jest. — Bernard De Mandeville

All our pride is but a jest. None are worst and none are best. Grief and hope and joy and fear Play their pageant everywhere. — Thomas Campion

Many wise words are spoken in jest, but they don't compare with the number of stupid words spoken in earnest. — Sam Levenson

Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit. — Aristotle.

Jody said, "Ma, you're shore good."
"Oh, yes. When it's rations."
"Well, I'd a heap ruther you was good about rations and mean about other things."
"Oh, I be mean, be I?"
"Only about jest a very few things," he soothed her. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

It is an old saying, "A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword"; and many men are as much galled with a calumny, a scurrile and bitter jest, a libel, a pasquil, satire, apologue, epigram, stage-plays, or the like, as with any misfortune whatsoever. — Robert Burton

The jostling of young minds against each other has this wonderful attribute that one can never foresee the spark, nor predict the flash. What will spring up in a moment? Nobody knows. A burst of laughter starts from a scene of emotion. In a moment of buffoonery, the serious enters. Impulses depend on a chance word. The spirit of each is sovereign. A jest suffices to open the door to the unexpected. They are conferences with sharp turns, where the perspective suddenly changes. Chance is the director of these conversations. — Victor Hugo

Some say it is better to have eaten and lost than never to have eaten at all. — Marissa Meyer

Why are you so prickly, English? Is it because I am a Scot?" "It's because you are overbearing, domineering, and pushy." "I am a man," he replied easily. "If men are allowed to behave in such an atrocious fashion, how are women supposed to act?" "Appreciative. And among my clan we like them demanding in bed," he added with a smile. When her gaze grew even cooler, he said, "You do not respond well to a jest. Be easy, Gwen Cassidy. I seek but to lighten your fears. You need fear naught, lass. I will care for you, despite your bad blood. Even the English can learn. On occasion," he added, just to provoke her. — Karen Marie Moning

July 15, 1991

Nita: My mother was a paragon of our neighborhood, People always come up to us with hugs, saying "You have the most wonderful mother." l'd think. "Don't you see what's going on in this house?" To this day, if somehow even in jest raises their hand to me, I will do this (raises hands to protect face and cowers) I cringe. Then they look at me like, what's your probem? You don't get that from a great childhood. — Sarah E. Olson

For the murder of Jest, the court joker of Hearts, I sentence this man to death.'
She spoke without feeling, unburdened by love or dreams or the pain of a broken heart. It was a new day in Hearts, and she was the Queen.
'Off with his head — Marissa Meyer

Unfortunately he was one of those who always tend to take their own fancies seriously; and in whose otherwise legitimate extravagance there is too little of the juice of the jest. — G.K. Chesterton

There was, between her and Mik, a fairy-tale promise: that when he had performed three heroic tasks, he could ask for her hand. She'd meant it in jest, but he'd taken it to heart, and was only one task down out of three - though secretly Zuzana accepted his fixing the air-conditioning in their last hotel room as a heroic act and counted it. — Laini Taylor