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Wit Quotes

True wit is Nature to advantage dress'd What oft was thought but ne'er so well express'd.

Wit is the lowest form of humor.

True wit is nature to advantage dress'd What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed.

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

True wit is nature to advantage dressed;What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'dWhat oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;Something w...

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Alexander PopeAn Essay on Criticism

You can tell a really wonderful quote by the fact that it's attributed to a whole raft of wits.

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Anna QuindlenImagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City

His foe was folly and his weapon wit.

Melancholy men are of all others the most witty.

They are fond of fun and therefore witty, wit being well-bred insolence.

Picture of Aristotle
AristotleThe Rhetoric & The Poetics of Aristotle

I follow my own methods, and tell as much or as little as I choose. That is the advantage of being u...

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At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.

I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.", 1657)

I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it sho

One can have a wit, but not a witless

This lot won't suffer you forever.I wouldn't see you dead by their knives; I see a fine man within y...

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Does the king know you're back?""Nope! I'm trying to think of a properly dramatic way to inform him....

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Too many scholars think of research as purely a cerebral pursuit. If we do nothing with the knowledg...

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I hope to return. I’ll do so if I’m not killed. Probably will anyway.

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Brandon SandersonThe Way of Kings

To be human is to seek beauty, Shallan. Do not despair, do not end the hunt because thorns grow in y...

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I’ll admit, Jasnah, that I empathize with your skepticism, but I don’t agree with it. I just think y...

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What you did tonight was clever,” Wit said. “You turned an attack into a promise. The wisest of men ...

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Why hasn't anyone killed him yet?”“Dumb luck,” Wit said. “In that I’m lucky you’re all so dumb.

For glory lit, and life alive, for goals unreached and aims to strive. All men must try, the wind di...

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This is a lot more satisfying," he said, "when I have intelligent life whom I can render awed, rapt ...

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Brandon SandersonWords of Radiance

Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty.

Picture of Brandon Sanderson
Brandon SandersonWords of Radiance

Patience, grasshopper," said Maia. "Good things come to those who wait.""I always thought that was '...

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I had such plans for this evening. The pursuit of blind drunkenness and wayward women was my goal. B...

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So you're a Shadowhunter,' Nate said. 'De Quincey told me that you lot were monsters.''Was that befo...

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If you cant beat 'em cooperate 'em to death!

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Charles M. SchulzPeanuts Guide to Life: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Best-Loved Cartoon Characters

Lingerer, my brain is on fire with impatience; and you tarry so long!

Ever since I discovered that my god given male member was going to give me no peace, I decided to gi...

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Wit, after all, is the unfailing symptom of intelligence.

Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliab...

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She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sou...

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

Sometimes you have to break a rule to save the system.

You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your...

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He remembered having said to his uncle (with a solemn dogmatism better befitting a much younger man)...

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There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is si...

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You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer

In fact, Lig never formally resigned his editorship—he merely left his office late one morning, and ...

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Captain Billings," he drawled finally, "if you will pardon my candor, I might remark that you are so...

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I have a different idea of elegance. I don't dress like a fop, it's true, but my moral grooming is i...

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The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.

He drew a circle that shut me out-Heretic , rebel, a thing to flout.But love and I had the wit to wi...

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I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than to have things I am not able to appre...

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Paparazzi arrived for Hugh [Grant]. We had to stand under a tree and smile for them.Photographer: 'H...

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Emma ThompsonThe Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film

For a poet he threw a very accurate milk bottle.

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Ernest HemingwayA Moveable Feast

The poet is a faker / Who's so good at his act / He even fakes the pain / Of pain he feels in fact.

There's no greater proof of an impoverished mind than its inability to be witty except at other peop...

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Fernando PessoaThe Book of Disquiet

Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.

Belief in form but disbelief in content - that's what makes an aphorism charming.

The wittiest authors raise the very slightest of smiles.

She would walk through the kitchen at any hour, whenever she was hungry, and put her fork in the pot...

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Gabriel García MárquezLove in the Time of Cholera

After dinner, at five o’clock, the crew distributed folding canvas cots to the passengers, and each ...

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Gabriel García MárquezLove in the Time of Cholera

He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James."No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifyin...

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

The well of true wit is truth itself.

What I'd like to read is a scientific review, by a scientific psychologist--if any exists--of 'A Sci...

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I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that...

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And here, I believe, the wit is generally misunderstood. In reality, it lies in desiring another to ...

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Henry FieldingThe History of Tom Jones

Here comes Mamma Vauquerr, fair as a starrr; and strung up like a bunch of carrots. Aren't we suffoc...

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Avoid witticisms at the expense of Others.

The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: 1) A blind willingness to believe anything you're tol...

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Hunter S. ThompsonFear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

On some days you get what you want, and on others, you get what you need.

Picture of Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. ThompsonKingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

I've been so thoroughly incorporated into the California culture that I practice meditation and go t...

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Isabel AllendeMi país inventado: Un paseo nostálgico por Chile

Yeah you can have a word," said Harry savagely. "Good-bye.

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J. K. RowlingHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.

Picture of J. K. Rowling
J. K. RowlingHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

If you can overcome the occasional angst, you may have the chance to see some interesting things, pe...

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The wit makes fun of other persons the satirist makes fun of the world the humorist makes fun of h...

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There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.

It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant.

I'm very fond of experimental housekeeping.

You are very fond of bending little minds; but where little minds belong to rich people in authority...

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It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed---the two bridemaids were duly inferio...

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Jane AustenMansfield Park

...it is indeed a street of so impertinent a nature, so unfortunately connected with the great Londo...

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Jane AustenNorthanger Abbey

You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must b...

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Jane AustenPride and Prejudice

You judge very properly, and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with deli...

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Jane AustenPride and Prejudice

Well, well," said he, "do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, ...

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Jane AustenPride and Prejudice

There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, whic...

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This was a lucky recollection -- it saved her from something like regret.

Picture of Jane Austen
Jane AustenPride and Prejudice

He listened to her with perfect indifference while she chose to entertain herself in this manner; an...

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Jane AustenPride and Prejudice

A man often runs the risk of throwing away a witticism if he admits that it is his own.

It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at ...

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Lady Placida smiled. “History seldom takes note of serendipity when it records events. And from what...

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Ack!" I said.Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me.

You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else. I need you, she replied.Well, I...

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The difference ‘twixt poet and coxcomb is precisely that the latter stops gaps like a ship fitter ca...

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It's common platitude that knowledge is neutral but every now and then it would be useful if it was ...

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John BrunnerThe Jagged Orbit

The bristling eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. Mesmerized, the boy watched them disappear under th...

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Jonathan StroudThe Amulet of Samarkand

Really?""No. I'm being ironic. Or is it sarcastic? I can never remember.""Irony's cleverer, so you'r...

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Jonathan StroudThe Screaming Staircase

She drank in all their compliments and soon she was full of herself.

Picture of Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Gordon-LevittThe Tiny Book of Tiny Stories

There’s a fine line between support and stalking and let’s all stay on the right side of that.

Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SH...

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Great wits jump

Picture of Laurence Sterne
Laurence SterneThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

Now don't let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we make free with in th...

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Picture of Laurence Sterne
Laurence SterneThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy