Quotes
Quotes about Wit
Free livers on a small scale; who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea.
For a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
Yet shall you have to rectify your palate, An olive, capers, or some better salad Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen, If we can get her, full of eggs, and then, Limons, and wine for sauce: to these a coney Is not to be despaired of for our money; And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks, The sky not falling, think we may have larks.
The master of art or giver of wit, Their belly.
And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon.
If you wish to grow thinner, diminish your dinner, And take to light claret instead of pale ale; Look down with an utter contempt upon butter, And never touch bread till its toasted--or stale.
I am a shell-fish just come from being saturated with the waters of the Lucrine lake, near Baiae; but now I luxuriously thrust for noble pickle.
Annius has some two hundred tables, and servants for every table. Dishes run hither and thither, and plates fly about. Such entertainments as these keep to yourselves, ye pompous; I am ill pleased with a supper that walks.
The genuine Amphitryon is the Amphitryon with whom we dine. [Fr., Le veritable Amphitryon Est l'Amphitryon ou l'on dine.]
The poor man will praise it so hath he good cause, That all the year eats neither partridge not quail, But sets up his rest and makes up his feast, With a crust of brown bread and a pot of good ale.
The belly (i.e. necessity) is the teacher of art and the liberal bestower of wit. [Lat., Magister artis ingenique largitor Venter.]
What, did you not know, then, that to-day Lucullus dines with Lucullus?
A very man--not one of nature's clods-- With human failings, whether saint or sinner: Endowed perhaps with genius from the gods But apt to take his temper from his dinner.
No, Antony, take the lot: But, first or last, your fine Egyptian cookery Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar Grew faw with feasting there.
Marry, he must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil.
Thou say'st his meat was sauced with thy upbradings; Unquiet meals make ill digestions; Thereof the raging fire of fever bred.
Each man to his stool, with that spur as he would to the lip of his mistress. Your diet shall be in all places alike; make not a City feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon the first place; sit, sit. The gods require our thanks.
Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but backrout quite the wits.
You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.
But that our feasts In every mess have folly, and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attired, swoon, I think, To show myself a glass.
Let echo, too, perform her part, Prolonging every note with art; And in a low expiring strain, Play all the comfort o'er again.
Echo waits with art and care And will the faults of song repair.
Sweetest Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen Within thy airy shell, By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-embroidered vale.
The birds chaunt melody on every bush, The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun, The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, And make a checkered shadow on the ground; Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit, And whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds, Replying shrilly to the well-tuned horns, As if a double hunt were heard at once, Let us sit down and mark their yellowing noise; And after conflict such as was supposed The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoyed, When with a happy storm they were surprised, And curtained with a counsel-keeping cave, We may, each wreathed in the other's arms, Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber, Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds Be unto us as is a nurse's song Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.
Never sleeping, still awake, Pleasing most when most I speak; The delight of old and young, Though I speak without a tongue. Nought but one thing can confound me, Many voices joining round me, Then I fret, and rave, and gabble, Like the labourers of Babel.
