WIT QUOTES
quotations about wit
A thing well said will be wit in all languages.
JOHN DRYDEN
Essay of Dramatic Poesy
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
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"
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
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
Great wits are sure to madness near allied;
And thin partitions do their bonds divide.
JOHN DRYDEN
Absalom and Achitophel
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
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
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
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