All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness of their fact, they call purchase, as a name more honest. Howsoever, he that for want of will or wit useth not those means, must rest in servitude and poverty.
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The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.
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The German is like the slave who, without chains, obeys his masters merest word, his very glance. The condition of servitude is inherent in him, in his very soul and worse than the physical is the spiritual slavery. The Germans must be set free from wit
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He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.
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'A likely story indeed!' said the Pigeon, in a tone of the deepest contempt. 'I've seen a good many little girls in my time, but never one wit...
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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.
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Wit is the lowest form of humor.
Humor
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You have a ready wit. Tell me when it's ready.
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There are many shining qualities on the mind of man; but none so useful as discretion. It is this which gives a value to all the rest, and sets them at work in their proper places, and turns them to the advantage of their possessor. Without it, learning is pedantry; wit, impertinence; virtue itself looks like weakness; and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice. Though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.
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A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.
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Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.
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Here with hosts of friends I revel who can never change or chill; Though the fleeting years and seasons they are fair and faithful still! Kings and courtiers, knights and jesters, belles and beaux of far away, Meet and mingle with the beauties and the heroes of to-day. All the lore of ancient sages, all the light of souls divine, All the music, wit and wisdom of the gray old world is mine, Garnered here where fall the shadows of the mystic pineland's gloom! And I sway an airy kingdom from my little book-lined room.
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That ready wit, which you so partially allow me, ... may create many admirers; but, take my word for it, it makes few friends. It shines and dazzles like the noonday sun, but, like that, too, it is very apt to scorch, and therefore is always feared. The milder morning and evening light and heat of that planet soothe and calm our minds. Never seek for wit; if it present itself, well and good; but even then, let your judgement interpose, and take care that it be not at the expense of anybody.
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Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork and drive the brute off?
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I can't say whether we had more wit among us now than usual, but I am certain we had more laughing, which answered the end as well.
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The more wit the less courage.
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I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not. If I could, be... a great athlete and make a million a year, be a wit, a born -- vivant and a lady killer, as well as a philosopher, a philanthropist ... and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint s; the bon-vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; the philosopher and the lady killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably, at the outset of life. Be alike possible for a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more of less be suppressed. So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully and pick out on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal, but the fortunes of this self are real. Its failure are real failures, its triumphs real triumphs carrying shame and gladness with them.
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Wit is often concise and sparkling, compressed into an original pun or metaphor. Brevity is said to be its soul. Humor can be more leisurely, ...
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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...
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One should never risk a joke, even of the mildest and most unexceptional charters, except among people of culture and wit.
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Manner is all in all whatever is writ, the substitute for genius sense and wit
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By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost always strong and bold. Writers will be more anxious to work quickly than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a rude and untutored vigor of thought with great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than to please, and to stir passions rather than to charm taste.
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This coffee plunges into the stomach...the mind is aroused, and ideas pour forth like the battalions of the Grand Army on the field of battle.... Memories charge at full gallop...the light cavalry of comparisons deploys itself magnificently; the artillery of logic hurry in with their train of ammunition; flashes of wit pop up like sharp-shooters.
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Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.
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Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit.
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He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.
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Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.
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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.
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He drew a circle that shut me out --
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
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Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed.
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