#Wit Quotes

“The dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.”

“Twas a clever quibble. Here, a garment for it.”

“They have a plentiful lack of wit.”

“Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them; But, in the less foul profanation.”

“Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry. Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting. Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out. Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies. Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail. Katherine: In his tongue. Petruchio: Whose tongue? Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell. Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.”

“I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.”

“thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.”

“Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee? BEATRICE Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. BENEDICK O, stay but till then! BEATRICE 'Then' is spoken; fare you well now... (Much Ado About Nothing)”

“Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.”

“This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, Which gives men stomach to digest his words With better appetite.”

“Polonius: Do you know me, my lord? Hamlet: Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.”

“DON PEDRO Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. BEATRICE Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it. DON PEDRO You have put him down, lady, you have put him down. BEATRICE So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools.”

“Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENEDICK Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEATRICE I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come. BENEDICK You take pleasure then in the message? BEATRICE Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point ... You have no stomach, signior: fare you well. Exit BENEDICK Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that... (Much Ado About Nothing)”

“He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.”

“A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit; How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!”

“If you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt.”

“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”

“[S]ince brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.”

“Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit;All with me's meet that I can fashion fit.”

“I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed!”

“I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.”

“There's many a man hath more hair than wit.”

“How now, wit! Whither wander you?”

“Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions.”

“My father's wit, and my mother's tongue, assist me!”

“JAQUES: Rosalind is your love's name? ORLANDO: Yes, just. JAQUES: I do not like her name. ORLANDO: There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.”

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”

“How every fool can play upon the word!”

“He kills her in her own humor.”

“When the age is in, the wit is out”

“If I was your wife Sir, I'd poison you! Madam, if you were my wife, I'd let you!”

“This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; And to do that well craves a kind of wit: He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time, And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye. This is a practise As full of labour as a wise man's art For folly that he wisely shows is fit; But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.”

“True wit never made us laugh.”

“Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinction. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. It is like ice, on which no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage, can plead any immunity; they must walk gingerly, according to the laws of ice, or down they must go, dignity and all.”

“He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.”

“He looks like a female llama who has been surprised in the bath.”

“Fancy living in one of these streets, never seeing anything beautiful, never eating anything savoury, never saying anything clever!”

“I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

“This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas; And utters it again when God doth please: He is wit's pedler; and retails his wares.”

“A witty saying proves nothing.”

“Besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in fine society, as the costliest addition to its rule and its credit.”

“Puns are the droppings of soaring wits.”

“Old Madame du Deffand and her friends talked for fifty years without stopping. And of it all, what remains? Perhaps three witty sayings. So that we are at liberty to suppose either that nothing was said, or that nothing witty was said, or that the fraction of three witty sayings lasted eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty nights, which does not leave a liberal allowance of wit for any one of them.”

“A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention.”

“He who cannot shine by thought, seeks to bring himself into notice by a witticism.”

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

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”

“If you want to be witty, say what you think at all times”

“You can fake intelligence, but you can't fake wit.”

“Digression is the soul of wit.”