Quotes on Wit

He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. . . . He was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. . . . He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating in to clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some occasion is presented to him.

'T is an old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.

A proverb is one man's wit and all men's wisdom.

Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

We cannot use a double standard for measuring our own and other people's policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country.

Many of the most successful men I have known have never grown up. They have retained bubbling-over boyishness. They have relished wit, they have indulged in humor. They have not allowed ‘dignity’ to depress them into moroseness. Youthfulness of spirit is the twin brother of optimism, and optimism is the stuff of which American business success is fashioned. Resist growing up!

Coffee falls into the stomach... ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop... the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink...

Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.

It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers… They would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control.

Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.

For as the body grows old, so the wits grow old and become blind towards all things alike.

No evil is without its compensation. The less money, the less trouble; the less favor, the less envy. Even in those cases which put us out of wits, it is not the loss itself, but the estimate of the loss that troubles us.

Wit ought to be a glorious treat like caviar; never spread it about like marmalade.

And writers say, as the most forward bud_x000D_ _x000D_ Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,_x000D_ _x000D_ Even so by love the young and tender wit_x000D_ _x000D_ Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,_x000D_ _x000D_ Losing his verdure even in the prime,_x000D_ _x000D_ And all the fair effects of future hopes.

There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof, I hope, there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not understood, it shall be concluded, that something very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character, shall be judged to contain something extraordinary either or wit of sublime.

Theologians and other clerks, _x000D_ You won't understand this book, _x000D_ -- However bright your wits -- _x000D_ If you do not meet it humbly, _x000D_ And in this way, Love and Faith _x000D_ Make you surmount Reason, for _x000D_ They are the protectors of Reason's house.

Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.

Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools: they have need of 'em: wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation, and let father Time shake his glass.

Wit can be beautiful, because it expresses and distills an idea.