Quotes
Quotes about Wit
Successful crime is dignified with the name of virtue; the good become the slaves of the impious; might makes right; fear silences the power of the law. [Lat., Prosperum ac felix scelus Virtus vocatur; sontibus patent boni; Jus est in armis, opprimit leges timor.]
Sport hunting is a crime. My sympathies are with the fox.
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind.
Whenever man commits a crime heaven finds a witness.
A man must serve his time to every trade Save censure--critics all are ready made. Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote, With just enough of learning to misquote; A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault; A turn for punning, call it Attic salt; To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet, His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet; Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit; Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit; Care not for feeling--pass your proper jest, And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.
There are come Critics so with Spleen diseased, They scarcely come inclining to be pleased: And sure he must have more than mortal Skill, Who please one against his Will.
Each generation produces its squad of "moderns" with peashooters to attack Gibraltar.
The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon.
Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow Makes wing to th' rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, While night's black agents to their prey do rouse.
An angel with a trumpet said, "Forever more, forever more, The reign of violence is o'er!"
And you, enchantment, Worthy enough a herdsman--yea, him too, That makes himself, but for our honor therein, Unworthy thee-if ever henceforth thou These rural latches to his entrance open, Or hoop his body more with thy embraces, I will devise a death as cruel for thee As thou art tender to't.
Oh, could I fly, I'd fly with thee! We'd make, with joyful wing, Our annual visit o'er the globe, Companions of the spring.
When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men: for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!
List--'twas the cuckoo--O, with what delight Heard I that voice! and catch it now, though faint, Far off and faint, and melting into air, Yet not to be mistaken. Hark again! Those louder cries give notice that the bird, Although invisible as Echo's self, Is wheeling hitherward.
Culture, with us, ends in headache.
Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.
Cunning is strength withheld.
Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.
Custom governs the world; it is the tyrant of our feelings and our manners and rules the world with the hand of a despot.
A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind's eye.
A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.
The daffodil is our doorside queen; She pushes upward the sword already, To spot with sunshine the early green.
I would I had some flowers o' th' spring that might Become your time of day, and yours, and yours, That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing. O, Proserpina, For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall From Dis's wagon; daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength--a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one.
You may wear your virtues as a crown, As you walk through life serenely, And grace your simple rustic gown With a beauty more than queenly. Though only one for you shall care, One only speak your praises; And you never wear in your shining hair, A richer flower than daisies.
