Wit Quotes

Silence is the wit of fools.
Anatole France

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. Somerset Maugham

Ability, Substitute, Quote

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

Enough, Avoid, Witty

It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues.
Jean de la Bruyere

Men, Sad, Speak

The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.
Avicenna

Religion, Men, Divided

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
Joseph Roux

Fool, Hand, Fine

While the laughter of joy is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of mockery, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising wit.
Lewis Carroll

Life, Great, Learning

Far less envy in America than in France, and far less wit.
Stendhal

Envy, America, Far

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
William Hazlitt

Don't set your wit against a child.
Jonathan Swift

Who would not give up wit for power and beauty?
Mason Cooley

Beauty, Power, Give

Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast.
William Penn

Less, Judgment, Sail

For those whose wit becomes the mother of villainy, those it educates to be evil in all things.
Sophocles

Mother, Evil, Whose

Woman: the peg on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch and the sinner his justification.
Helen Rowland

Woman, Sinner, Cynic

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

Wise, Live, Within

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

Treat, Glorious, Caviar

Wit must be foiled by wit: cut a diamond with a diamond.
William Congreve

You have a ready wit. Tell me when it's ready.
Henny Youngman

A wit should be no more sincere than a woman constant.
William Congreve

Woman, Sincere, Constant

To find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task.
William Congreve

Fool, Hard, Find

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.
William Congreve

Time, Business, Wisdom

A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.
Charles Lamb

Off, Laws, Intellect

Next to being witty, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit.
Christian Nestell Bovee

Best, Another, Able

In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge.
George Herbert

Humor, Knowledge, Worth

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

Bitter, Flowers, Fountain

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people - that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.
James Thurber

Nature, Fun, True

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.
Germaine Greer

Strength, Dark, Energy

Wit is a weapon. Jokes are a masculine way of inflicting superiority. But humor is the pursuit of a gentle grin, usually in solitude.
Frank Muir

Humor, Solitude, Jokes

The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit.
William Temple

Humor, Good, Truth

And new Philosophy calls all in doubt, the element of fire is quite put out; the Sun is lost, and the earth, and no mans wit can well direct him where to look for it.
John Donne

Fire, Lost, Doubt

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

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