WIT
Wishers and woulders be small householders.
Vulgaria Stambrigi. Pub. by Wynkyn de Wohde. Early in the XVI. Cent.
| note =
| topic =
| page = 883
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>What most we wish, with ease we fancy near.
Young—Love of Fame. III.
| note =
| topic =
| page = 883
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Wishing, of all employments is the worst.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night IV. L. 71.
He calls his wish, it comes; he sends it back,
And says he called another; that arrives,
Meets the same welcome; yet he still calls on;
Till one calls him, who varies not his call,
But holds him fast, in chains of darkness bound,
Till Nature dies, and judgment sets him free;
A freedom far less welcome than this chain.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night IV. Lines
near end.
Man wants but little, nor that little long;
How soon must he resign his very dust,
Which frugal nature lent him for an hour!
Young—Night Thoughts. Night IV. L. 118.
| seealso = (See also Goldsmith)
| topic =
| page = 883
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>What folly can be ranker. Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night V. L. 661.
WIT
An ounce of wit is worth a pound of sorrow.
Richard Baxter—Of Self -Denial.
| author =
| work =
| place =
| note =
| topic =
| page = 883
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 5
| text = Que les gens d'esprit sont betes.
What silly people wits are!
Beaumarchais—Barbier de Sivitte. I. 1.
Good wits will jump.
Buckingham—The Chances. Act IV. Sc. 1.
John Byhom—The Winners. L. 39. Cervantes—Dora Quixote. Pt. II. Ch.
XXXVIII. Sterne—Tristram Shandy.
Aristotle said * * * melancholy men of
all others are most witty.
| author = Burton
| work = Anatomy of Melancholy.
| place = Pt. I. Sec.
III. Memb. 1. Subsect. 3.
We grant, although he had much wit,
H' was very shy of using it,
As being loth to wear it out,
And therefore bore it not about;
Unless on holy days or so,
As men their best apparel do.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. I. Canto I.. L. 45.
*
Great wits and valours, like great states,
Do sometimes sink with their own weights.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. II. Canto I. L. 269.
Votre esprit en donne aux autres.
Your wit makes others witty.
Catherine II—Letter to Voltaire.
| seealso = (See also Henry IV)
| topic =
| page = 883
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear
it should get blunted.
| author = Cervantes—The Little Gypsy.
WIT
I am a fool, I know it; and yet, Heaven help
me, I'm poor enough to be a wit.
Congreve—Love for Love. Actl. Sc. 1.
His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you' knock, it never is at home.
| author = Cowper
| work = Conversation. L. 303.
| seealso = (See also Pope)
| topic =
| page = 883
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Wit, now and then, struck smartly, shows a
STlfLTK
| author = Cowper
| work = Table Talk. L. 665.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
Dryden—Absalom and Achitophel. Pt. I. L.
163.
| seealso = (See also Burns under Buss, and Pope under Sense)
| topic =
| page = 883
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Ev'n wit's a burthen, when it talks too long.
Dryden—Sixth Satire of Juvenal. L. 573.
Wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
Dryden—To the Memory of Mr. Oldham.
Their heads sometimes so little that there is
no room for wit; sometimes so. long, that there
is no wit for so much room.
Fuller—The Holy and Profane States. Bk.
W. Ch.XII. Of Natural Fools. Maxim I.
Mit wenig Witz und viel Behagen
Dreht jeder sich im engen Zirkeltanz
Wie junge Katzen mit dem Schwanz.
With little wit and ease to suit them,
They whirl in narrow circling trails,
Like kittens playing with their tails.
Goethe—Faust. I. 5. 94.
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line.
| author = Goldsmith
| work = Retaliation. L. 96.
Les beaux esprits lernen einander durch dergleichen rencontre erkennen.
It is by such encounters that wits come to
know each other.
Andreas Gryphius—Horribilicribfax. Act
IV. Sc. 7. Voltaire—Letter to Thieriot,
June 30, 1760, used the expression. See
Buchmann—Oefl&gelte Worte. Ed. 10. P.
123.
| seealso = (See also Henry IV)
| topic =
| page = 883
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
Hazlitt—Lectures on the English Comic Writers. Lecture I.
Wit's an unruly engine, wildly striking
Sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer:
Hast thou the knack? pamper it not with liking;
But if thou want it, buy it not too deare
Many affecting wit beyond their power,
Have got to be a deare fool for an houre.
| author = Herbert
| work = Temple. Church Porch. St. 41.
At our wittes end.
Heywood—Proverbs. Pt. I. Ch VIII
Psalms CVII. 27. ("Their wits.
