Wit Quotes

What's the point of havin' a rapier wit if I can't use it to stab people.

For we seldom admire the wit, when we dislike the man.

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.

Children are a plant substitute and we haven't the wit to see it until too late

What do you do with mother love and mother wit when the babies are grown and gone away?

Do not think that your Learning and Genius, your Wit or Sprightliness, are welcome everywhere. I was once told that my Company was disagreeable because I appeared so uncommonly happy.

Wit, to be well defined, must be defined by wit itself; then it will be worth listening to.

Many species of wit are quite mechanical; these are the favorites of witlings, whose fame in words scarce outlives the remembrance of their funeral ceremonies.

Laugh as loud as you please at your companion's wit; do not even smile at his folly.

It is a poor wit who lives by borrowing the words, decisions, mien, inventions and actions of others.

Borrowed wit is the poorest wit.

Yet here I stand poor fool what more, not one wit wiser than before.

Much malice mingled with a little wit Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ.

One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it.

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

A thing well said will be wit in all languages.

If you put on an Oscar Wilde [play], it will interest those who are interested in Oscar Wilde. But it won't interest anybody else, because they won't get that wit.

If thy wealth waste, they wit will give but small warmth.

It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit, That woman's love can win, or long inherit; But what it is, hard is to say, Harder to hit.

Americans just don't understand dry wit.

Wit and wisdom are born with a man.

No man is the wiser for his learning; it may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon; but wit and wisdom are born with a man.

Imyself haveheard averygood jest, and havescornedto seem to have so sillya wit as to understand it.

We continue, however, to write about important people, prize-winning people, blacks of grandeur, women of great fire, fame or wit. We do not write about ordinary people.

If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.

There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of punning.

I shall endeavour to enliven Morality with Wit, and to temper Wit with Morality, that my Readers may, if possible, both Ways findtheir Account in the Speculation of the Day.

Good sense is at the bottom of everything: virtue, genius, wit, talent and taste.

Blue Boy proves that if you don't quite fit in, then you might as well stand out with as much wit, color and audacity as you can muster.

Some of the best work done to combat the Republicans has been wit and humor.

Only those who haven't got the wit to speak for themselves would ever want their clothes to do it for them.

One should have wit, but not wish to have it; otherwise there will be witticism, the Alexandrian style of wit.

Wit is absolutely sociable spirit or aphoristic genius.

Economists and technologists bring the "bits", but it requires the social scientists and humanists to bring the "wits.

The Scandinavians are dear people but they've never been what you might call bywords for wit and sparkle, have they?

to the many, witticisms not only require to be explained, like riddles, but are also like new shoes, which people require to wear many times before they get accustomed to them.

Women's beauty, like men's wit, is generally fatal to the owners.

I love every-day senses, every-day wit and entertainment; a man who is only good on holidays, is good for very little.

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.

It is by vivacity and wit that man shines in company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon.

A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit.

Someone who gossips well has a reputation for being good company or even a wit, never for being a gossip.

The character of false wit is that of appearing to depend only upon reason.

Wit does not take the place of knowledge.

All my shows are therapy, trying to navigate interesting subjects so I can work them out and to be honest and say some things are beyond the wit of this man.

We are always more disposed to laugh at nonsense than at genuine wit; because the nonsense is more agreeable to us, being more comfortable to our natures.

I do not like to employ secretaries that have more wit than myself. I am afraid to make them write all my nonsense.

swearing is, as I have said, learning to the ignorant, eloquence to the blockhead, vivacity to the stupid, and wit to the coxcomb.

You don't need a dead father to explain a character's sadness. And impressing yourself with wit/cleverness often feels like what it is - authorial intrusion.

Wit saves us from being swallowed whole by life.