A Quote by Agnes Repplier

Wit is artificial; humor is natural. Wit is accidental; humor is inevitable. Wit is born of conscious effort; humor, of the allotted ironies of fate. Wit can be expressed only in language; humor can be developed sufficiently in situation.

Agnes Repplier

Quote Topics

Accidental Artificial Born Conscious Conscious Effort Developed Effort Expressed Fate Humor Inevitable Language Natural Only Situation Wit

Quote Author

Agnes Repplier
American - Writer
April 1, 1855 - November 15, 1950

Wit penetrates; humor envelops. Wit is a function of verbal intelligence; humor is imagination operating on good nature.

Peggy Noonan

I think humor is warmer, and wit is colder. Wit is judgment, whereas humor invites some sort of response.

Fran Lebowitz

Any discussion of the problems of being funny in America will not make sense unless we substitute the word wit for humor. Humor inspires sympathetic good-natured laughter and is favored by the healing-power gang. Wit goes for the jugular, not the jocular, and it's the opposite of football; instead of building character, it tears it down.

Florence King

By wit we search divine aspect above, By wit we learn what secrets science yields, By wit we speak, by wit the mind is rul'd, By wit we govern all our actions; Wit is the loadstar of each human thought, Wit is the tool by which all things are wrought.

Robert Greene

I don't like jokes in speeches. I do like wit and humor. A joke is to humor what pornography is to erotic language in a good novel.

James C Humes

People who go for humor are wonderful because they do great humor. People who go for wit and end up with humor are people who have made a mistake.

Robert Benton

Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism, innuendo, or any other form of cruelty. When these things are raised to a high point they can become wit, but unlike the French and the English, we have not been much good at wit since the days of Benjamin Franklin.

James Thurber

No charm, no humor, no wit -- and a personality which can only be described as 'icky.' .

Conan O'Brien

Humor is wit and love.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Humor is the pensiveness of wit.

Robert Aris Willmott

Wit is the lowest form of humor.

Alexander Pope

Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.

Aristotle

My dad's sense of humor was direct and sometimes surreal - his quick wit is well known amongst our family and friends. He raised me on Spike Jones records and W.C. Fields movies, and his sense of humor fell somewhere in between.