Quotes & Sayings About Wit

The thing can never be separated from someone who perceives it; nor can it ever actually be in itself because its articulations are the very ones of our existence, and because it is posited at the end of a gaze or at the conclusion of a sensory exploration that invests it with humanity. To taking up or the achievement by us of an alien intention or inversely the accomplishment beyond our perceptual powers and as a coupling of our body wit the things. — Maurice Merleau Ponty

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue. — Richard Steele

And though I might have learnt more wit and advanced my understanding by living in a Court, yet being dull, fearful and bashful, I neither heeded what was said or practised, but just what belonged to my loyal duty and my own honest reputation. — Margaret Cavendish

A trial is still an ordeal by battle. For the broadsword there is the weight of evidence; for the battle-ax the force of logic; for the sharp spear, the blazing gleam of truth; for the rapier, the quick and flashing knife of wit. — Lloyd Paul Stryker

I bob and weave em, hit em wit that Mayweather JAB. — Nicki Minaj

What you did tonight was clever," Wit said. "You turned an attack into a promise. The wisest of men know that to render an insult powerless, you often need only to embrace it. — Brandon Sanderson

Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say:
Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'. — Chip Kidd

They ordered punch. They drank it. It was hot rum punch. The pen falters when it attempts to treat of the excellence thereof; the sober vocabulary, the sparse epithet of this narrative, are inadequate to the task; and pompous term, jewelled, exotic phrases rise to the excited fancy. It warmed the blood and cleared the head; it filled the soul with well-being; it disposed the mind at once to utter wit, and to appreciate the wit of others; it had the vagueness of music and the precision of mathematics. Only one of its qualities was comparable to anything else; it had the warmth of a good heart; but its taste, its smell, its feel, were not to be described in words. — W. Somerset Maugham

There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit. — Alexander Pope

It was while Princess Margaret was attending a high-society party in New York that the hostess asked her politely how the Queen was keeping. "Which one?" she is reported to have replied with her typically razor-sharp wit. "My sister, my mother or my husband? — Princess Margaret

Boy, this is your lucky day!" She clapped her hands. "You found yourself a librarian! I can help wit the figuring-out thing and point you toward some good poetry while I'm at it. It's what I do. — Joe Hill

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

Those who object to wit are envious of it. — William Hazlitt

The mighty and supreme Jesus, who was to transfigure all humanity by his divine wit and grace-this Jesus has flown. — Goldwin Smith

The finest wits have their sediment. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

They were eyes made for laughter, but not raucous yuks; rather, for the laughter of wit, of erudition, of the bon mot. — Stephen Hunter

Wit, who never once Forgave a brother, shall forgive a dunce. — Charles Churchill

Good-humor will even go so far as often to supply the lack of wit. — Henry Fielding

You'll find God in the same place you're going to find salvation from this mess," Wit said. "Inside the hearts of men. — Brandon Sanderson

Better the fragrant herb of wit and a little cream of affability than all the pretty cups in the world. — Van Wyck Brooks

It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart. — Jerome K. Jerome

Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing. — Joss Whedon

I think I owe my life to cork soles. — Anthony Trollope

There's many a man has more hair than wit. — William Shakespeare

Have you seen them?" he asked. Arrow looked at him disinterestedly. Will frowned. Not talking, eh?" he said. "Maybe you're a little hoarse." He cackled breifly at his own wit. — John Flanagan

You are lovely, brilliant, witty ... the incredible words which would relieve her of any need to repay him or refuse his gifts; loveliness and wit were priced higher than any gift he offered, while if a girl were loved, even old women of hard experience would admit her right to take and never give. — Graham Greene

Every habit makes our hand more witty, and out wit more handy. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Going to marry her? Impossible! You mean a part of her; he could not marry her all himself. It would be a case, not of bigamy but trigamy; there is enough of her to furnish wives for the whole parish. One man marry her! - it is monstrous! You might people a colony with her; or give an assembly with her; or perhaps take your morning's walk round her, always provided there were frequent resting places, and you were in rude health. I once was rash enough to try walking round her before breakfast, but only got half way and gave it up exhausted. Or you might read the Riot Act and disperse her; in short, you might do anything but marry her! — Sydney Smith

I was in them million dollar meetings, he was cheatin. All up in the church, he was sneakin wit the deacon. — Nicki Minaj

There is going to come a day when everyone here is going to need keen observation and wit to ridicule George W. Bush. But when that day comes, all we're going to have are tired puns and goofy looks. Because as you would say, we're suffering from the soft bigotry of low expectorations. — Jon Stewart

So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth,
both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT
as his RESISTANCE. — Laurence Sterne

True to the precepts handed down to her by her mother and grandmother - to wit: that a true lady can neither be shocked nor surprised - Miss Marple merely raised her eyebrows and shook her head, — Agatha Christie

There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D.H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and were used up by. Old D.H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one. Better than G.B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom, his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally useless. — Charles Bukowski

Although it has been said by men of more wit than wisdom, and perhaps more malice than either, that women are naturally incapable of acting prudently, or that they are necessarily determined to folly, I must by no means grant it. — Mary Astell

Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust. — Alexander Pope

The well of true wit is truth itself. — George Meredith

Wit, like hunger, will be with great difficulty restrained from falling on vice and ignorance, where there is great plenty and variety of food. — Henry Fielding

Things are bound to begin happening if you've got your wits about you. You create the lucky accidents. — Lewis Thomas

Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — George Eliot

Silence is the wit of fools. — Anatole France

I want to be able to do anything with words: handle slashing, flaming descriptions like Wells, and use the paradox with the clarity of Samuel Butler, the breadth of Bernard Shaw and the wit of Oscar Wilde, I want to do the wide sultry heavens of Conrad, the rolled-gold sundowns and crazy-quilt skies of Hitchens and Kipling as well as the pastel dawns and twilights of Chesterton. All that is by way of example. As a matter of fact I am a professed literary thief, hot after the best methods of every writer in my generation. — F Scott Fitzgerald

A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful. — Daniel Defoe

People in books were always so charming, and all their thoughts and actions so comprehensible. They all invariably had a clear, well-defined object in life, and strove through a few hundred engrossing pages to attain this object. They were all noble and generous, and their lives were bright and beautiful. What interesting and delightful moments Irene had passed in their society! They had made her laugh and cry and suffer and rejoice, and had entertained her with the brilliancy of their wit. How dull and colourless real people had appeared beside these heroes and heroines of fiction. — Aimee Dostoyevsky

Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit. — Edward Young

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not when someone's saying I love you. — Judith Viorst

Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning. — Benjamin Franklin

Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away. — Samuel Butler

To try to save for everyone, for the hostile and independent as well as the committed, some of the health that flows down across the green ridges from the skyline, and some of the beauty and spirit that are still available to any resident of the valley who has a moment and the wit to lift up his eyes unto the hills. — Wallace Stegner

Oh wrangling schools, that search what fire
Shall burn this world had none the wit
Unto this knowledge to aspire
That this her fever might be it?
I'm so sorry about Bella, Jack. — Thomas Harris

Psychopaths have a grandiose self-structure which demands a scornful and detached devaluation of others, in order to ward off their envy toward the good perceived in other people. He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence. He will delight you with his wit and his plans. He will show you a good time but you will always get the bill. He will smile and deceive you, and he will scare you with his eyes. And when he is through with you, and he will be through with you, he will desert you and take with him your innocence and your pride. — Robert D. Hare

Remember that the wit, humour, and jokes of most mixed companies are local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting. — Lord Chesterfield

Wit is something more than a gymnastic trick of the intellect; true wit implies a beam of thought into the essence of a question, a flash that lights up a situation. Wit suggests the delicate but delightful play of a rapier in the hands of a master. — Arthur Lynch

Wit and wisdom are born with a man. — John Selden

Be not too slow in the breaking of a sinful custom; a quick, courageous resolution is better than a gradual deliberation; in such a combat he is the bravest soldier that lays about him without fear or wit. Wit pleads, fear disheartens; he that would kill Hydra had better strike off one neck than five heads: fell the tree, and the branches are soon cut off. — Francis Quarles

some call their mistake a discovery;to others, their mistake is a misfortune and to most people a mistake is a deviation from the acceptable. A mistake is a mistake depending on what we think it is. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

In England, wit is at least a profession, if not an art. everything becomes professional there, and even the rogues of that islandare pedants. So are the "wits" there too. They introduce into reality absolute freedom whose reflection lends a romantic and piquant air to wit, and thus they live wittily; hence their talent for madness. They die for their principles. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit; the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness; the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue. — Jean De La Bruyere

If, as Marshall McLuhan once taught us, the medium is the message, then Derfner's medium-this lovely, discursive amalgamation of wit and smarts-is indeed his message about how to stay happy, sane, and honest in whatever situation one finds oneself in. — Philip Gambone

She's fine," said Declan, defensive. "You're fine, right?"
She gave him a look. "Peachy."
"See? Both Alex and her astounding wit have made it here intact. Her sense of humour seems to be M.I.A, but I'm pretty sure that was a pre-existing condition. — Jena Leigh

The dull always seek to be clever at the fool's expense, to somehow repay him for his cutting wit, but never are they clever, and often they are cruel. — Christopher Moore

Look, this is helping me out quite a bit, but could you just get to the punishment part? We're at the end of World War Two in history, and I can't wait to find out who wins. — Rob Thomas

I have wit in my work and a sense of humor, but I do not use irony in any way. — John Zorn

When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness. — Baron De Montesquieu

So welcome 'Damsels in Distress,' an exhilarating gift of a comedy about college, the female intellect, the limitless male ego, inventing a new dance, and suicide prevention ... This is the world as Stillman sees it, and to luxuriate for two hours in that retro bubble of sparkling wit is a pleasure not to be missed. — Peter Travers

You beef wit me, I'm-a even the score equally. Take you on Jerry Springer and beat your ass legally. — Eminem

I have a black belt in sarcasm, and my wit is like lightning. — N.R. Walker

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn. — Joss Whedon

When I was young, some women told me they loved me for my long eyelashes. I accepted. Later it was for my wit. Then for my power and money. Then for my talent. Then for my mind-deep. OK, I can handle all of it.
The only woman who scares me is the one who loves me for myself alone. I have plans for her. I have poisons and daggers and dark graves in caves to hide her head. She can't be allowed to live. Especially if she's sexually faithful and never lies and always puts me ahead of everything and everyone. — Mario Puzo

I'll be there for you, I will care for you, I keep thinking you just don't know. Tryna run from that, say you're done wit that, on your face girl it just don't show. — Drake

Nutt was technically an expert on love poetry throughout the ages and had discussed it at length with Miss Healstether, the castle librarian. He had also tried to discuss it with Ladyship, but she had laughed and said it was frivolity, although quite helpful as a tutorial on the use of vocabulary, scansion, rhythm and affect as a means to an end, to wit getting a young lady to take all her clothes off. At that particular point, Nutt had not really understood what she meant. It sounded like some sort of conjuring trick. — Terry Pratchett

Two negatives don't make a positive, any more than two half-wits make a wit. — Neil Kinnock

Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not critics to their judgment, too? — Alexander Pope

Old Madame du Deffand and her friends talked for fifty years without stopping. And of it all, what remains? Perhaps three witty sayings. So that we are at liberty to suppose either that nothing was said, or that nothing witty was said, or that the fraction of three witty sayings lasted eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty nights, which does not leave a liberal allowance of wit for any one of them. — Virginia Woolf

With little wit and ease to suit them, They whirl in narrow circling trails, Like kittens playing with their tails. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Lasting peace is only found through a lifesaving relationship wit Jesus Christ ... knowing Christ means that all the world might be falling apart just outside your front door, maybe just inside it - yet that inner peace, that inner knowing, remains unshaken. — Karen Kingsbury

A favorite strategy was the paragraph-terminating: Right? Followed immediately by Wrong. This linear invitation to a mugging was considered a strategy of wit. — Renata Adler

If you don't have the grace and wit to die early, you are forced to vanish, to hide as if in shame and apology. — Don DeLillo

Irreverence is easy - what's hard is wit. — Tom Lehrer

The covers of this book are too far apart. — Ambrose Bierce

Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
And glittering thoughts struck out at ev'ry line;
Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. — Alexander Pope

Someone once told me that we move when it becomes less painful than staying where we are. — Anne Hines

Any rash fool can be a hero if he sets no value on his life, or hasn't the wit to appreciate danger. But to understand the risk, perhaps even to flinch at first, but then to summon the strength to face them down - that in my opinion is the most commendable form of valour — Robert Harris

He sincerely was beautiful.His smile,his wit,his friendliness and ease,his laughter-they all exuded such beauty.How could one look at him and not think him wonderful? — Jenni James

Wit catches of wit, as fire of fire. — Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke

To be witty is not enough. One must possess sufficient wit to avoid having too much of it. — Andre Maurois

In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge. — George Herbert

When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. — William Shakespeare

Wit in women is a jewel, which, unlike all others, borrows lustre from its setting, rather than bestows it; since nothing is so easy as to fancy a very beautiful woman extremely witty. — Charles Caleb Colton

It is often a sign of wit not to show it, and not to see that others want it. — Suzanne Curchod

At wuntz? What HE do?
What HE do? Who do?
Wuntz do hoo doo? How do he do hoo doo?
Once do who do? What? What!? To wit, WHAT. — Walt Kelly

If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly. — Baron De Montesquieu

You lil Fraggle Rock, beat you wit a padded lock — Nicki Minaj

Sometimes you have to break a rule to save the system. — Dean Koontz

Drunkenness is the very sepulcher
Of man's wit and his discretion. — Geoffrey Chaucer

Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines. We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Of all questions, why? is the least pertinent. It begs the question; it assumes the larger part of its own response; to wit, that a sensible response exists. — Jack Vance

Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible. — Samuel Johnson

But one of shallow wit, somewhat like a saltshaker with very little salt. In — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Wicked ecclesiastics who show the worst example to the people," and, above all, nobles who empty the purses of the poor by their extravagance, and disdain them for "lowness of blod or foulenesse of body," for deformed shape of body or limb, for dullness of wit and uncunning of craft, and deign not to speak to them, and who are themselves stuffed with pride - of ancestry, fortune, gentility, possessions, power, comeliness, strength, children, treasure - "prowde in lokynge, prowde in spekyng, ... prowde in goinge, standynge and sytting." All would be drawn by fiends to Hell on the Day of Judgment. — Barbara W. Tuchman