Humour & Wit Quotes

Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength.

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

Love's immortality so blind Dreams that all things with it conjoined Must share with it immortal day: But not of this—but not of this— The touch, the eyes, the laugh, the kiss, Fall from it and it goes its way.

Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.

Only laughter can blow [a colossal humbug] to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn.

Humour is consistent with pathos, whilst wit is not.

You laughed for the marrow in their bones that was not yet ready for laughter; And you wept for their eyes that yet were dry. Your voice fathered their thoughts and their understanding. Your voice mothered their words and their breath.

Humour is the mistress of tears; she knows the way to the fons lachrymarum, strikes in dry and rugged places with her enchanting wand, and bids the fountain gush and sparkle. She has refreshed myriads more from her natural springs, than …

Your wit is of the true Pierian spring, That can make anything of anything.

Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference.

The rest to some faint meaning make pretense, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, His rising fogs prevail …

We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

'Tis not Wit merely, but a Temper which must form the Well-Bred Man. In the same manner, 'tis not a Head merely, but a Heart and Resolution which must compleat the real Philosopher.

From quiet homes and first beginning, Out to the undiscovered ends, There's nothing worth the wear of winning, But laughter and the love of friends.

I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh.

I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company, yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof.

He knew what 's what, and that 's as high As metaphysic wit can fly.

My mood, I say, was one of exaltation. I felt as a seeing man might do, with padded feet and noiseless clothes, in a city of the blind. I experienced a wild impulse to jest, to startle people, to clap men on the back, fling people's hats …

We know Mr. Gladstone is an authority...that the Soudanese are struggling for their liberty. My impression of the matter is that the Soudanese are struggling for abridging the liberty of other people in the shape of the slave trade. …

[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.

A man must have something to grumble about; and if he can’t complain that his wife harries him to death with her perversity and ill-humour, he must complain that she wears him out with her kindness and gentleness.

The best-humour'd man, with the worst-humour'd Muse.

This singularity of his humour made him much observed.