Quotes
Quotes about Wit
My tongue within my lips I rein: For who talks much must talk in vain.
And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth; Four things greater than all things are-- Women and Horses and Power and War.
His talk was like a stream which runs With rapid change from rock to roses; It slipped from politics to puns; It passed from Mahomet to Moses; Beginning with the laws that keep The planets in the radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep For dressing eels or shoeing horses.
What cracker is this same that deafs our ears With this abundance of superfluous breath?
Talk with a man out at a window!--a proper saying!
Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.
Taste: a quality possessed by persons without originality or moral courage.
Never before have so many been taken for so much and left with so little.
The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing.
If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is with representation.
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes, for many a joke had he: Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd.
The trainer trains the docile horse to turn, with his sensitive neck, whichever way the rider indicates. [Lat., Fingit equum tenera docilem cervice magister Ire viam qua monstret eques.]
A stoic of the woods,--a man without a tear.
And the tear that is wiped with a little address, May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.
No radiant pearl, which crested Fortune wears, No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's wars. Not the bright stars which Night's blue arch adorn, Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn, Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.
Let tears flow of their own accord: their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act according with the dictates of reason.
They are eloquent who can speak low things acutely, and of great things with dignity, and of moderate things with temper.
A tart temper never mellows with age; and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
And he that will to bed go sober, Falls with the leaf still in October.
Of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate. (Tar Water.)
Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame, When once it is within thee; but before Mayst rule it, as thou list: and pour the shame, Which it would pour on thee, upon the floor. It is most just to throw that on the ground, Which would throw me there, if I keep the round.
Impostor; do not charge most innocent Nature, As if she would her children should be riotous With her abundance; she, good cateress, Means her provision only to the good, That live according to her sober laws, And holy dictate of spare temperance.
