If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.
Francis Bacon

Impropriety is the soul of wit.
W. Somerset Maugham

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

In Paris, you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals, and in Florence you learn poise.
Virgil Thomson

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

Indeed I had not much wit, yet I was not an idiot - my wit was according to my years.
Margaret Cavendish

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

It is always the same: women bedeck themselves with jewels and furs, and men with wit and quotations.
Maurice Chevalier

It takes great wit and interest and energy to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish.
Robert Herrick

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

Let the master praise him, and say, "Here ye do well." For, I assure you, there is no such whetstone to sharpen a good wit, and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.
Roger Ascham

Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.
Jean de la Bruyere

Man forgives woman anything save the wit to outwit him.
Minna Antrim

Marriage is the grave or tomb of wit.
Margaret Cavendish

My dad's sense of humor was direct and sometimes surreal - his quick wit is well known amongst our family and friends. He raised me on Spike Jones records and W.C. Fields movies, and his sense of humor fell somewhere in between.
Tony Visconti

Mystery writers' conventions are usually good, and this one has been excellent and extremely well prepared and thought out in advance. A lot of people have given their time and their skill, and a good deal of wit, and Anchorage has made us extraordinarily welcome.
Anne Perry

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

No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool.
George Savile

No man is the wiser for his learning; it may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon; but wit and wisdom are born with a man.
John Selden

Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.
Richard Steele