quotations about wit
Great wits, like great beauties, look upon mere esteem as a flat insipid thing; nothing less than admiration will content them.
JEREMIAH SEED
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Discourses on Several Important Subjects
A good wit ill employed is dangerous in a commonwealth.
DEMOSTHENES
attributed, Day's Collacon
Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive.
DANIEL DEFOE
A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of The True-born Englishman
Wit is the capacity to fine-tune to context.
RICHARD COYNE
Mood and Mobility: Navigating the Emotional Spaces of Digital Social Networks
Wit in conversation is only a readiness of thought and a facility of expression, or (in the midwives' phrase) a quick conception, and an easy delivery.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
I think humor is warmer, and wit is colder. Wit is judgment, whereas humor invites some sort of response.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
"In Conversation: Fran Lebowitz with Phong Bui", The Brooklyn Rail, March 4, 2014
A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit;
How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Twelfth Night
Truth, when witty, is the wittiest of all things.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE
Guesses at Truth
Many would live by their Wits, but break for want of Stock.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1750
It is as offensive to speak wit in a fool's company, as it would be ill manners to whisper in it; he is displeased at both for the same reason, because he is ignorant of what is said.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
Have you summoned your wits from wool-gathering?
THOMAS MIDDLETON
The Family of Love
Luckily, wit is contagious.
NICHOLAS CRONK
"Voltaire and the one-liner", Oxford University Press blog, March 10, 2017
His wit is his new bat and the Twitter handle his new pitch.
JAIDEEP GHOSH
"Sachin Tendulkar Seeks Caption For Picture With Virender Sehwag", NDTV, April 5, 2017
A clever wit is always timeless.
KATE WINGFIELD
Metro Weekly, January 14, 2016
Too much wit makes the world rotten.
ALFRED TENNYSON
Idylls of the King
Less judgment than wit, is more sail than ballast.
WILLIAM PENN
Fruits of Solitude
When the drink is in the wit is out.
SONIA SIMS
Belfast Telegraph, January 23, 2016
There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
DOROTHY PARKER
The Paris Review, summer 1956
Quick wit is lauded by friends and foes alike.
TRISTAN HOPPER
National Post, August 17, 2015
He seemeth to be most ignorant that trusteth most to his wit.
PLATO
attributed, Day's Collacon