WIT QUOTES

quotations about wit

Wit quote

A thing well said will be wit in all languages.

JOHN DRYDEN

Essay of Dramatic Poesy

Tags: John Dryden


What is sharper than a sword?
The wit of a woman between two men.

LADY GREGORY

Gods and Fighting Men


He must be a dull Fellow indeed, whom neither Love, Malice, nor Necessity, can inspire with Wit.

JEAN DE LA BRUYERE

The Characters or Manners of the Present Age

Tags: Jean de la Bruyère


An epigram is the marriage of wit and wisdom; a wisecrack, their divorce.

EVAN ESAR

20,000 Quips & Quotes


To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.

AMBROSE BIERCE

"Epigrams of a Cynic"

Tags: Ambrose Bierce


The wit of men compared to that of women is like rouge compared to the rose.

ST. FOIX

attributed, Day's Collacon


A wit in the society of stupid people is like a damp lucifer match, the brilliant properties of which are, for the time, neutralized by the unignitable qualities of the atmosphere in which it has been misplaced.

CHARLES WILLIAM DAY

The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos

Tags: Charles William Day


Wit never appears to greater advantage than when it is successfully exerted to relieve from a dilemma, palliate a deficiency, or cover a retreat.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


Your wit is always leading you beyond bounds; if Monsieur de Treville heard you, you would repent of speaking thus.

ALEXANDRE DUMAS

The Three Musketeers


Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones.

RAY BRADBURY

Fahrenheit 451

Tags: Ray Bradbury


Great wits are sure to madness near allied;
And thin partitions do their bonds divide.

JOHN DRYDEN

Absalom and Achitophel


Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon; Or, Many Things in a Few Words

Tags: Charles Caleb Colton


The plucky little Posh, my Sicilian American bride of 35 years, insists that I'm not particularly funny. I respond that a sly wit is all I seek, and that kind of thing often goes undetected, especially in a marriage.

CHRIS ERSKINE

"Health bills pile up, as I fall down", Watertown Daily Times, March 27, 2017


For when the wine is in, the wit is out.

THOMAS BECON

Catechism

Tags: Thomas Becon


Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting: it is most sharp sauce.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Romeo and Juliet


Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE

Essays on Men and Manners


Rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,
Which gives men stomach to digest his words,
With better appetite.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Julius Caesar


There have always been historians and there has always been wit, but never historians of wit.

EVAN ESAR

20,000 Quips & Quotes


The greatest advantage I know of being thought a wit by the world is that it gives one the greater freedom of playing the fool.

ALEXANDER POPE

"Thoughts on Various Subjects"


Wit, without wisdom, is salt without meat; and that is but a comfortless dish to set a hungry man down to.

GEORGE HORNE

Essays and Thoughts on Various Subjects