A Quote by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Wit is the appearance, the external flash, of fantasy. Hence its divinity and the similarity to the wit of mysticism.
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Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In England, wit is at least a profession, if not an art. everything becomes professional there, and even the rogues of that islandare pedants. So are the "wits" there too. They introduce into reality absolute freedom whose reflection lends a romantic and piquant air to wit, and thus they live wittily; hence their talent for madness. They die for their principles.
There is, however, in art another kind of external similarity which is founded on a fundamental truth. When there is a similarity of inner tendency in the whole moral and spiritual atmosphere, a similarity of ideals, at first closely pursued but later lost to sight, a similarity in the inner feeling of any one period to that of another, the logical result will be a revival of the external forms which served to express those inner feelings in an earlier age.
One should have wit, but not wish to have it; otherwise there will be witticism, the Alexandrian style of wit.
You know, Gilan, sarcasm isn't the lowest form of wit. It's not even wit at all." -Halt
Indeed I had not much wit, yet I was not an idiot - my wit was according to my years.
It is having in some measure a sort of wit to know how to use the wit of others.
Who can prove Wit to be witty when with deeper ground Dulness intuitive declares wit dull?
wit, wit! - I look upon it always as a draught of air; it cools indeed, but one gets a stiff neck from it.
In cheerful souls there is no wit. Wit shows a disturbance of the equipoise.
Moment I stop havin fun wit it, I'll be done wit it.
What are the precise characteristics of an epigram it is not easy to define. It differs from a joke, in the fact that the wit of the latter dies in the words, and cannot therefore be conveyed in another language; while an epigram is a wit of ideas, and hence, is translatable. Like aphorisms, songs and sonnets, it is occupied with some single point, small and manageable; but whilst a song conveys a sentiment, a sonnet a poetical, and an aphorism a moral reflection, an epigram expresses a contrast.
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