A Quote by Mary Collyer
swearing is, as I have said, learning to the ignorant, eloquence to the blockhead, vivacity to the stupid, and wit to the coxcomb.
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A coxcomb is the blockhead's man of merit.
A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
The best thing next to wit is a consciousness that it is not in us; without wit, a man might then know how to behave himself, so as not to appear to be a fool or a coxcomb.
All the world says of a coxcomb that he is a coxcomb; but no one dares to say so to his face, and he dies without knowing it.
It is by vivacity and wit that man shines in company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon.
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.
Swearing relieves the feelings - that is what swearing does. I explained this to my aunt on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. She said I had no business to have such feelings.
Ignorant have always the tendency to see the donkey as the noble horse, to see the pig as the lion! Ignore the judgements of the ignorant, because ignorant makes the ant elephant; he declares the stupid as the intelligent; he carries the silly on his shoulders!
Cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.
Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.
Once a coxcomb, always a coxcomb.
Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference.
Stupid religion makes stupid beliefs, stupid leaders make stupid rules, stupid environment makes stupid health, stupid companions makes stupid behaviour, stupid movies makes stupid acts, stupid food makes stupid skin, stupid bed makes stupid sleep, stupid ideas makes stupid decisions, stupid clothes makes stupid appearance. Lets get rid of stupidity from our stupid short lives.
Foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb always a coxcomb.
We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous; we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it.
Men of superior vivacity and wit, when they take a wrong turn, are generally worse than other men: because wit, consisting in a lively representation of ideas assembled together, gives every sensible object those heightening touches, and that striking imagery, which is unknown to men of slower apprehensions: wit being to sensible objects, what light is to bodies; it does not merely show them as they are in themselves: it gives an adventitious colour, which is not a property inherent in them: it lends them beauties which are not their own.
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