Quotes about Wit

I have been assaulted by cleverness on all fronts.

I love irony.

I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit.

With respect to wit, I learned that there was not much difference between the half and the whole.

Humour is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour, for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.

On one level, I am a massive joker and can't take anything seriously, but on the other hand, I'm incredibly serious and a deep thinker, so I have that dichotomy within me.

All intellectual labor is inherently humorous

It is positively because he is quick-witted that he is long-winded.

Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called 'educated' making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting? [...] The best thing that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness—in plain English, the stupidity which is still the average mark of our culture.

You must have taken great pains, sir; you could not naturally been so very stupid.

If you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything.