wit Quotes

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”

“I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.”

“Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.”

“We seek him here, we seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell? That demmed, elusive Pimpernel?”

“He seemed very proud of his clever wife, and to care little that she took no pains to disguise that good-natured contempt which she evidently felt for him, and that she even amused herself by sharpening her ready wits at his expense.”

“Watch out he’s winding the watch of his wit, by and by it will strike.”

“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”

“When misfortune comes, The wisest even lose their mother wit.”

″‘Brightness...I believe you stray into sarcasm.’ ‘Funny.I thought I’d run straight into it,screaming at the top of my lungs.‘”

″‘I can see what you’re up to.’ ‘Five foot six inches,’ Shallan said. ‘I suspect that’s all I will ever be up to, unfortunately.‘”

“Little men have sharp wits; he shall part the goods between us.”

“For though she was ordinary, she possessed health, wit, courage, charm, and cheerfulness. But because she was not beautiful, no one ever seemed to notice these other qualities, which is so often the way of the world.”

“Peradventure this is not Fortune’s work neither, but Nature’s, who perceiveth our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses, and hath sent this natural for our whetstone, for always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.”

“In the first place, the Browns are a fighting family. One may question their wisdom, or wit, or beauty, but about their fight there can be no question.”

“A novel full of warmth, wit, love, and the pursuit of dreams, the story takes place during the years between the two world wars.”

“But they will outwit you quick as a winick.”

“You—know—nothing. Of course you know nothing,” said Mr Alleyne. “Tell me,” he added, glancing first for approval to the lady beside him, “do you take me for a fool? Do you think me an utter fool?” The man glanced from the lady’s face to the little egg-shaped head and back again; and, almost before he was aware of it, his tongue had found a felicitous moment: “I don’t think, sir,” he said, “that that’s a fair question to put to me.” There was a pause in the very breathing of the clerks. Everyone was astounded (the author of the witticism no less than his neighbours) and Miss Delacour, who was a stout amiable person, began to smile broadly.

“Well, to proceed, wit in my opinion is a splendid thing, it is, so to say, an adornment of nature and a consolation of life, and what tricks it can play!”