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Wit Quotes

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Wit Quotes

“Truth is disputable; not taste: what exists in the nature of things is the standard of our judgement; what each man feels within himself is the standard of sentiment. Propositions in geometry may be proved, systems in physics may be controverted; but the harmony of verse, the tenderness of passion, the brilliancy of wit, must give immediate pleasure. No man reasons concerning another's beauty; but frequently concerning the justice or injustice of his actions.”

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Book:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Revision of Great Book
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“Hast any philosophy in thee shepherd? .• • • • . . . He that wants money, means and content, is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.”

WantMayMeanArtPhilosophyNightThreeCausesFriendshipSunLearningFireRainPropertyComplainingWitFatsTheeDullSheepWetGood FriendBreedingShepherdsKindredPasturesGood Breeding
Book:Select Plays of William Shakespeare: In Six Volumes. With the Corrections & Illustrations of Various Commentators. To which are Added, Notes
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“All Kings, and all their favorites, All glory of honors, beauties, wits, The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass, Is elder by a year, now, than it was When thou and I first one another saw: All other things, to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay; This, no tomorrow hash, nor yesterday, Running, it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.”

YearsFirstsRunningLastsSunSawsKingsTomorrowHonorGloryDrawsDestructionWitYesterdayDecayOur LoveEverlastingEldersElderlyMaking TimeHash
Book:Selected poems
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“The good gardener knows with absolute certainty that if he does his part, if he gives the labour, the love, and every aid that his knowledge of his craft, experience of the conditions of his place, and exercise of his personal wit can work together to suggest, that so surely will God give the increase. Then with the honestly-earned success comes the consciousness of encouragement to renewed effort, and, as it were, an echo of the gracious words, 'Well done my good and faithful servant'.”

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Book:Wood and Garden: Notes and Thoughts, Practical and Critical, of a Working Amateur
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“I meditate for the last time on this mountain that is bare, though others all around are white with snow. Like the bare peak of the koan, this one is not different from myself. I know this mountain because I am this mountain, I can feel it breathing at this moment, as its grass tops stray against the snows. If the snow leopard should leap from the rock above and manifest itself before me - S-A-A-O! - then in that moment of pure fright, out of my wits, I might truly perceive it, and be free.”

IfsKnowsFeelsShouldI CanDifferentMomentsMightLastsTimeNatureWhiteRocksPureMountainWitSnowBreathingPerceiveGrassThat MomentLeapManifestLast TimeFrightLeopardsSnow Leopards
Book:Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982
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“The Drab Age is over. Color is coming into its own again. Until very recently people were literally scared out of their wits by color. Perhaps this was a hangover from our Puritan ancestors. But whatever the reason, brown, grays and neutrals were the only shades considered 'safe.' Now we know that lovely, clear colors have a vital effect on our mental happiness. Modern doctors and psychiatrists are convinced of this!”

PeopleKnowsReasonAgeClearModernEffectsColorSafeDoctorsScaredConvincedWitLovelyBrownShadeAncestorPsychiatristPuritanHangover
Author:Dorothy Draper
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“He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. . . . He was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. . . . He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating in to clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some occasion is presented to him.”

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Author:John Dryden
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“And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man's wit Can well direct him where to look for it. And freely men confess that this world's spent, When in the planets, and the firmament They seek so many new; then see that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all relation: Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot.”

MenWorldWellsLooksPhilosophyEarthFatherLostSunGoneDoubtFirePiecesSubjectsThis WorldPlanetsSonElementsLosingDirectRelationWitFather SonCoherenceFirmament
Book:The Works of John Donne, D.D. Dean of Saint Paul's, 1621-1631: With a Memoir of His Life
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“Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, and all flock to their aid.”

MenMomentsPoetryHopeLearningVirtueTraditionAidsWitDesertSpontaneousGrindFlocksMillsAnecdotesTruism
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)
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“Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind; Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote. Who too deep for his hearers still went on refining, And thought of convincing while they thought of dining: Though equal to all things, for all things unfit; Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.”

MindStillsUniverseBornPartyLearningNiceMankindProudEqualAll ThingsVoteWitThroatConvincingGave UpStatesmenDiningRefiningToo DeepToo Nice
Author:Oliver Goldsmith
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“Books are never out of humour; never envious or jealous, they answer all questions with readiness; ... they teach us how to live and how to die; they dispel melancholy by their mirth, and amuse by their wit; they prepare the soul to suffer everything and desire nothing; they introduce us to ourselves.”

BookSoulDesireSufferingDiesAnswersTeachHumourWitMelancholyJealousIntroducingEnviousReadinessMirth
Book:The Anatomy of Bibliomania
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“Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his home town: yet such pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of life; and as nothing is little to him that feels it with gre”

FeelsLittlesHomePainPleasureMoralGreaterJourneyMoralityMassTownsSentencesWitOccasionsHome TownOstentatious
Book:Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales
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“I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it”

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Book:Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales
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“By the consultation of books, whether of dead or living authors, many temptations to petulance and opposition, which occur in oral conferences, are avoided. An author cannot obtrude his service unasked, nor can be often suspected of any malignant intention to insult his readers with his knowledge or his wit. Yet so prevalent is the habit of comparing ourselves with others, while they remain within the reach of our passions, that books are seldom read with complete impartiality, but by those from whom the writer is placed at such a distance that his life or death is indifferent.”

BookPassionAdviceReaderHabitDistanceIntentionWitTemptationCompareInsultOppositionIndifferentConferencesAvoidedLife Or DeathImpartialityConsultationPetulance
Author:Samuel Johnson
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“I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment: but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder-how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's movements a matter in which I had any cause to take vital interest.”

MatterOrderCausesInterestMistakePrinciplesWonderfulMovementDisappointmentWitSensationsTemporaryHeartbreakingBlundersSupposingRallyingRochesterMr Rochester
Book:The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“I knew the man up until our divorce - after that I didn't know the man, but it didn't stop me caring about him and worrying because of the complete change that I saw in him. He'd lost his sense of humour and he got aggressive; he wasn't for the world any more, he was just for Yoko. Before that he opened his arms and embraced the world with his wit and humour - afterwards he was a completely different kind of person.”

KnowsMenWorldKindPersonsDifferentLostWorrySawsHumourHe ManArmsCaringDivorceWitAggressiveDifferent Kinds
Author:Cynthia Lennon
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