A Quote by George Eliot

Who can prove Wit to be witty when with deeper ground Dulness intuitive declares wit dull?

George Eliot

Quote Topics

Deeper Dull Ground Intuitive Prove Wit Witty

Quote Author

George Eliot
British - Novelist
November 22, 1819 - December 22, 1880

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

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

The art of conversation consists far less in displaying much wit oneself than in helping others to be witty: the man who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own wit is very well pleased with you.

Jean de la Bruyere

Peter was dull; he was at first Dull; - Oh, so dull - so very dull! Whether he talked, wrote, or rehearsed - Still with his dulness was he cursed - Dull -beyond all conception - dull.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners.

Florence King

The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit; the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness; the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue.

Jean de la Bruyere

Wit is something more than a gymnastic trick of the intellect; true wit implies a beam of thought into the essence of a question, a flash that lights up a situation. Wit suggests the delicate but delightful play of a rapier in the hands of a master.

Arthur Lynch

In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except that it be that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it.

Roger Bacon

Your wit makes others witty.

Catherine the Great

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

William Shakespeare

Did I, my lines intend for public view,How many censures, would their faults pursue,Some would, because such words they do affect,Cry they're insipid, empty, uncorrect.And many, have attained, dull and untaught,The name of wit, only by finding fault.True judges, might condemn their want of wit,And all might say, they're by a woman writ.

Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.

William Shakespeare

We may distinguish six kinds of terrain, to wit: (1) Accessible ground; (2) entangling ground; (3) temporising ground; (4) narrow passes; (5) precipitous heights; (6) positions at a great distance from the enemy.