Quotes about wit

Wit is educated insolence.

— Aristotle

Melancholy men are of all others the most witty.

— Aristotle

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

— Ambrose Bierce

The banalities of a great man pass for wit.

— Alexander Chase

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.

— Lord Chesterfield

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

— Lord Chesterfield

Humor is consistent with pathos, whilst wit is not.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

— Noel Coward

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.

— William Cowper

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

— George Eliot

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

— William Hazlitt

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

— Samuel Johnson

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.

— Florence King

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

— Lucretius

Avoid witicisms at the expense of others.

— Horace Mann

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

— Andre Maurois

Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Wit is brushwood; judgment timber; the one gives the greatest flame, and the other yields the most durable heat; and both meeting make the best fire.

— Overlung

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

— Dorothy Parker

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

— Dorothy Parker

Brevity is the body and soul of wit.

— Jean Paul

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

— Phaedrus

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

— Alexander Pope

He's winding up the watch of his wit. By and by it will strike.

— William Shakespeare

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

— Germaine De Stael

Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit.

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— James Thurber

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

— Mark Twain

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.

— Mark Twain

Wit is more often a shield than a lance.

— Source Unknown

Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.

— Mark Van Doren

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?

— Peter De Vries