Motivational Quotes

Wit

People who can't be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

- Eliot, George

Best Quotes about Wit

The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners.

King, Florence

To be witty is not enough. One must possess sufficient wit to avoid having too much of it.

Maurois, Andre

Melancholy men are of all others the most witty.

Aristotle

A wise man will live as much within his wit as within his income.

Chesterfield, Lord

Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

People who can't be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

Eliot, George

Brevity is the body and soul of wit.

Paul, Jean

There's a helluva distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

Parker, Dorothy

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

Coward, Noel

10.

True wit is nature to advantage dressed, what oft was thought, but never so well expressed.

Pope, Alexander

11.

Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike.

Stael, Germaine De

12.

Witticisms please as long as we keep them within boundaries, but pushed to excess they cause offense.

Phaedrus

13.

Wit is more often a shield than a lance.

14.

Humor is consistent with pathos, whilst wit is not.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

15.

A man renowned for repartee will seldom scruple to make free with friendship's finest feeling, will thrust a dagger at your breast, and say he wounded you in jest, by way of balm for healing.

Cowper, William

16.

The banalities of a great man pass for wit.

Chase, Alexander

17.

Wit. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

Bierce, Ambrose

18.

In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers.

Lucretius

19.

Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism, innuendo, or any other form of cruelty. When these things are raised to a high point they can become wit, but unlike the French and the English, we have not been much good at wit since the days of Benjamin Franklin.

Thurber, James

20.

Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

Parker, Dorothy

21.

Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.

Chesterfield, Lord

22.

You can make a sordid thing sound like a brilliant drawing-room comedy. Probably a fear we have of facing up to the real issues. Could you say we were guilty of Noel Cowardice?

Vries, Peter De

23.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

Twain, Mark

24.

Avoid witicisms at the expense of others.

Mann, Horace

25.

Wit and Humor -- if any difference, it is in duration -- lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is vivid, and can do damage -- the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.

Twain, Mark

26.

He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

Johnson, Samuel