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
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 distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
Wit gives an edge to sense, and recommends it extremely.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Brevity is the soul of wit.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
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
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
Every witticism is an inexact thought; that which is perfectly true is imperfectly witty.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans
I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry IV, Part II
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
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
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
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
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
The wittiest man is one who says a good thing, and appears not to know it.
JOHN VAN BUREN
attributed, Day's Collacon