"Witty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to catch her mother's criticism of the book: light, perhaps, but witty, and with a little tang of harmless satire that always took his fancy. But she was not there. He sighed impatiently; was it possible he ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... we are sometimes cruel to our dear teachers," laughed Laura. "But if they are too serious they are such a temptation to us witty ones." ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... Clara was to render her distrustful of her later antagonism. She had unknowingly passed into the spirit of Miss Dale, Sir Willoughby aiding; for she could sympathize with the view of his constant admirer on seeing him so cordially and smoothly gay; as one may say, domestically witty, the most agreeable form of wit. Mrs Mountstuart Jenkinson discerned that he had a leg of physical perfection; Miss Dale distinguished it in him in the vital essence; and before either of these ladies he was not simply a radiant, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... should early form a taste for good reading. In the choice of books, as in the choice of friends, there is but one rule,—choose the best. A witty gentleman, having received an invitation from a wealthy but not very refined lady, on arriving was ushered into her library, where she was seated surrounded by richly-bound books. "You see, Mr. X.," she said, "I never need ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... last days of his shattered life James Harrington married an old friend of the family, a witty lady, daughter of Sir Marmaduke Dorrell, of Buckinghamshire. Gout was added to his troubles; then he was palsied; and he died at Westminster, at the age of sixty-six, on September 11, 1677. He was buried in St. Margaret's Church, by the grave of Sir Walter Raleigh, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... extant, make two folio volumes.—His treatise, de jure regni apud Scotos, was condemned by act of parliament, about two years after his death, which happened at Edinburgh on the 28th of September, 1582. These pamphlets going under the name of the witty exploits of George Buchanan, seem to be spurious, although it is true he pronounced many witty expressions, many of which have (I suppose) never been committed to writing, and some of which I could ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... court of his own. The distinction of ranks was as yet strongly marked—a state of things ardently to be desired by the dramatic poet. In conversation they took pleasure in quick and unexpected answers; and the witty sally passed rapidly like a ball from mouth to mouth, till the merry game could no longer be kept up. This, and the abuse of the play on words (of which King James was himself very fond, and we need not therefore ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... fragments of his numerous songs continued for ages to be repeated in the country, but it is feared, from all the changes which have taken place in the circumstances of the natives, that these are now irretrievably lost. Many of his witty sayings became proverbial in the island. He was one of the first sportsmen in the country, and was considered one of the most successful deer stalkers of his day. Along with his other accomplishments he was an excellent performer on the violin, and in this respect he had no equal in ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... cautious young noblemen would talk with Kalora, and, finding her bright-eyed, witty, ready in conversation and with enthusiasm for big and masculine undertakings, be attracted to her. At the same time her father decided that there was no reason why her pitiful shortage of avoirdupois ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... met the Archbishop of Minsk, once Rector of the Theological Academy at Petrograd. He had lost his diocese and lost his academy; a little old, stooping, grey-haired man, very witty, very sardonic and indulging in endless pleasantries at the expense of us all. He drank to England but not to Lloyd George. He drank to meeting me again—in Moscow. He drank to Serbia, and hoped they'd raise ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... the sun was shining brightly in a blue sky. I minded me with silent thanksgiving of all the good cheer yestereve had brought us, and of the wisdom and faithfulness of our good friends. Many a wise and a witty word uttered over their wine came back to me then; and I was wondering to myself what new plot had been brewing between my godfather and Uncle Tucher, whereas I had marked them laying their heads together, when behold, the stable-lad from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... eighteenth century for his frequent visits to his brother wits, Addison and Steele. It was strange how many common sayings of to-day were his in origin such as, "There is none so blind as they that won't see," and, "A penny for your thoughts." Like many witty people, he must needs have his little joke. He was made Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, in 1713, and was accustomed to preach there each Sunday afternoon, and was said to have preached on the same subject on sixteen consecutive occasions. On making his seventeenth appearance ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... the other day that some one recommended me to your Magazine after dinner, saying it contained an exceedingly witty article upon—I forget what. I give you my honor, sir, that I took up the work at six, meaning to amuse myself till seven, when Lord Trumpington's dinner was to come off, and egad! in two minutes I fell ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... trained to be a soldier; and until he was sixty years old the man belonged to the State absolutely. And all those years he ate his black broth at a public mess, seasoned only with fatigue and hunger. A witty Athenian said he did not wonder the Spartans were brave in battle, for death was ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... from a personal interview with the king, trusting rather to the efforts of his friends, many of whom were in high favor at Versailles. But one day he happened to light upon an old copy of "Poor Richard's Almanac," that unique publication in which Benjamin Franklin printed so many wise maxims and witty sayings. As Jones listlessly turned its pages, his eye fell ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... four are somewhat less; and I send them all painted unto your Lordship with the voyage. And the parchment wherein the picture is was found here with other parchments. The people of this town seem unto me of a reasonable stature, and witty, yet they seem not to be such as they should be, of that judgment and wit to build these houses in such sort as they are.... They travel eight days' journey unto certain plains lying towards the North Sea. In this country there are certain skins, well dressed; and they dress them ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... not at all, of the public; they wrote letters to their lovers and friends, memoirs of their every-day lives, romances in which they gave portraits of their familiar acquaintances, and described the tragedy or comedy which was going on before their eyes. Always refined and graceful, often witty, sometimes judicious, they wrote what they saw, thought, and felt in their habitual language, without proposing any model to themselves, without any intention to prove that women could write as well as men, without affecting manly views or suppressing womanly ones. One may say, at least ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... two jovial and witty Irishmen. They were common laborers. One was a hodcarrier, and a strapping fellow. When he arrived at the institution, he was at once placed in the violent ward, though his "violence" consisted of nothing more than an annoying ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... leg that was shot at Quebec and Saratoga," said the plucky and witty officer, "and bury it with the honors of war, and hang the rest of your ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... for amateurs, elegant suppers for gay ladies, and special soirees for the learned and the witty. He was not particular as to the means of doing business; thus he trafficked in everything,—for the sale of a living, or the procuration of a mistress—for he had associates in all ranks, among all ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Dr. Ianson, who had been laughing so much that he quite forgot dinner was behind time, "my dear Miss Bowen, your friend is the most amusing, witty, delightful person. It is quite a pleasure to have such a man at ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Thy whole munificence, thy whole magnanimity, thy whole generosity, to the living lights of thy sullen region of toil, trimming, and tribulation, of the dulness of dukes and the mountainous fortunes of pinmakers—is exactly L1200 a-year! and this to be divided among the whole generation of the witty and the wise, of the sons and daughters of the muse,—the whole "school of the prophets," the lustres of the poetry and the science of England! L1200 a-year for the only men of their generation who will be remembered for five minutes by the generation to come. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Credulous, what, not a Word? not a Compliment? Hah,—be brisk, Man, be gay and witty, talk ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... hostess knows that even when she brings together the group of mature folks, and even when they are wise and witty, she must be prepared adroitly to inspire the conversation or it may flag at times. How much more does the conversation need direction where we have the same group every day composed largely of immature persons! When you have thought of all the portions and all the plates, have ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... but one of blankest boredom. Bored and cross, hardly ever speaking to the person with them, their friends drove up and down every afternoon, and she and Susie did the same, as silent and as bored as any of them. A few unusually beautiful, or unusually witty, or unusually young persons appeared to find life pleasant and looked happy, but they avoided Susie. Her set was made up of the dull and plain; and all the amusing people, and all the interesting people, turned their backs with one accord on ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... Mrs. Bargrave could hatch such an invention as this from Friday noon till Saturday noon, supposing that she knew of Mrs. Veal's death the very first moment, without jumbling circumstances, and without any interest too; she must be more witty, fortunate, and wicked too, than any indifferent person, I dare say, will allow. I asked Mrs. Bargrave several times, if she was sure she felt the gown? She answered modestly, If my senses be to be relied ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... to make some witty reply to this sportive reproach, when the Duke de Bouillon announced to the duchess that she must prepare herself ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... displeases them: Every man will grant me this; but then, by a particular kindness to himself, he draws his own stake first, and will be distinguished from the multitude, of which other men may think him one. But, if I come closer to those who are allowed for witty men, either by the advantage of their quality, or by common fame, and affirm that neither are they qualified to decide sovereignly concerning poetry, I shall yet have a strong party of my opinion; for most of them severally will exclude the rest, either from the ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... taken sufficient care that theory shall have little influence on practice. The most diligent inquirer is not able long to keep his eyes open; the most eager disputant will begin about midnight to desert his argument; and, once in four-and-twenty hours, the gay and the gloomy, the witty and the dull, the clamorous and the silent, the busy and the idle, are all overpowered by the gentle tyrant, and all lie down ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... from the library, or an extra man at her dinner-table, Carrington was pretty certain to help her to the one or the other. Old Baron Jacobi, the Bulgarian minister, fell madly in love with both sisters, as he commonly did with every pretty face and neat figure. He was a witty, cynical, broken-down Parisian roue, kept in Washington for years past by his debts and his salary; always grumbling because there was no opera, and mysteriously disappearing on visits to New York; a voracious devourer of French and German literature, especially of novels; a man who ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... distinguished from a mere copy. The third cause may be found in the reader's conscious feeling of his superiority awakened by the contrast presented to him; even as for the same purpose the kings and great barons of yore retained sometimes actual clowns and fools, but more frequently shrewd and witty fellows in that character. These, however, were not Mr. Wordsworth's objects. He chose low and rustic life, 'because in that condition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil, in which they can attain their maturity, are less ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... for the centre table, witty enough for after dinner, and wise enough for the study and the school-room. One of the beautiful lessons of this work is the kindly view it takes of nature. Nothing is made in vain not only, but nothing is made ugly or repulsive. A charm is thrown around every object, and life suffused ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... voracious haste, but that appeared to be the custom of the country, and Agatha could find no great fault with their manners or conversation. The latter was, for the most part, quaintly witty, and some of them used what struck her as remarkably fitting and original similes. Indeed, as the meal proceeded she became curiously interested in the men and ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... my last, given some Account of my intended Summer Library, it cannot appear strange, if I should already have anticipated a Part of my Pleasure, and dipped into some of the promising Authors I mentioned. The witty Quevedo, in one of his visionary Prospects of Hell, fancies, he sees an Astrologer creeping upon all Four; with a pair of Compasses betwixt his Teeth; his Spheres, and Globes about him; his Jacob's ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... it necessary to see the poem. It was probably witty, if not wise, and wisdom need not intrude its grave face always into the freedom of the Friday nights; indeed, she rather winked at the performance, as she and her associate principal were to be out of town on that night, and "high ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... And the little witty man again interposed: "If you go with us, publican, you'll have two cheeks, a right and a left. But no arm, ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... Nature. It was a generally received opinion that the nightingale, to keep himself awake in the night, sat on a tree of thorn, so that if he nodded he would be pricked in the breast. The learned and witty Dr. Thomas Fuller thus alludes to it:—'I am sure the nightingale which would wake will not be angry with the thorn which pricketh her breast when she noddeth.' How useful would it be if a thorn could be so placed as to prick those who ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... or Mephistopheles, renamed Caesar, wears the shape of the Deformed Arnold. It may be that Byron intended to make Olimpia bestow her affections, not on the glorious Achilles, but the witty and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... Bachelor of the Stool, who made the speech on Ash Wednesday, when the senior Proctor called him up and exhorted him to be witty but modest withal. Their speeches, especially after the Restoration, tended to be boisterous, and even scurrilous. "26 Martii 1669. Da Hollis, fellow of Clare Hall is to make a publick Recantation in the Bac. Schools for his Tripos speeche." The Tripos verses still ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... is the case of any memorable scepticism published in a pointed or witty form; as Demosthenes avowed his suspicions "that the Oracle was Philippizing." This was about 344 years B.C. Exactly one hundred years earlier, in the 444th year B.C., or the locus of Pericles, Herodotus (then forty years old) is universally supposed to have read, which for him was publishing, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... nor had Ducrow arisen to shed the light of classic taste and portable gas over the sawdust of the circus; but the whole character of the place was the same, the pieces were the same, the clown's jokes were the same, the riding-masters were equally grand, the comic performers equally witty, the tragedians equally hoarse, and the 'highly-trained chargers' equally spirited. Astley's has altered for the better—we have changed for the worse. Our histrionic taste is gone, and with shame we confess, that we are far more delighted and amused with the audience, than with ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... which he knew not what to answer. "Why did he go back to the Bertaux now that Monsieur Rouault was cured and that these folks hadn't paid yet? Ah! it was because a young lady was there, some one who know how to talk, to embroider, to be witty. That was what he cared about; he wanted town misses." And ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... that the theatre under such conditions shall be talkative, witty, full of neat swift caricaturing, improvised, unselfconscious; at its worst, glib. Boisterous action often, passionate strain almost never. In Echegaray there are hecatombs, half the characters habitually go insane in the last act; tremendous barking but no bite of real intensity. Benavente ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... was desired by two witty peers To tell them the reason why asses had ears? 'An't please you,' quoth John, 'I'm not given to letters, Nor dare I pretend to know more than my betters; Howe'er, from this time I shall ne'er see ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... left, by the furnishing department. They made a mistake, and found themselves in the salons devoted to made linen, where Mrs. Cockayne hoped her husband would not make his daughters blush with what he considered to be (and he was much mistaken) witty observations. He was to be serious and silent amid mountains of feminine under linen. He was ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... defences would attract his attention, and that a sudden attack by Farnese might be the result. Sir John was not aware however, of the minute and scientific observations then making at the very moment when Mr. Garnier was entertaining the commissioners with his witty and instructive conversation—by the unobtrusive menial who had accompanied the Secretary to Ostend. In order that those observations might be as thorough as possible, rather than with any view to ostensible business, the envoy of Parma now declared that—on account of the unfavourable state ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the pernicious consequences of rebellion, and popular insurrections. I believe no man, who loves the government, would be glad to see the rabble in such a posture, as they were represented in our play; but if the tragedy had ended on your side, the play had been a loyal witty poem; the success of it should have been recorded by immortal Og or Doeg[21], and the rabble scene should have been true Protestant, though a whig-devil were ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... chance on which I'm calculating when I venture to accept your comic opera from an unknown beginner. It's clever, there's no denying that, and I hope the fact won't be allowed to tell against it: but the music's bright and lively; the songs are quaint and catching; the dialogue's brisk and not too witty; and there's plenty of business—plenty of business in it. I incline to think we can get together a house at the Ambiguities that'll enter into the humour of the thing, and see what your play's driving at. How did you learn all about stage requirements, though? I never saw ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... with decent people. Either they undertake to appease the offended person or, better still, you say something witty, you tell some comic story, perhaps one of those you have yourself heard at table, either in Aesop's style or in that of Sybaris; all laugh and the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... the Baron turned to Seraphina for approval, he found her frozen. 'You are pleased to be witty, Herr von Gondremark,' she said, 'and have perhaps forgotten where you are. But these rehearsals are apt to be misleading. Your master, the Prince of Grunewald, is ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ditty, both wise and witty, In this social city have I heard since then (With the glass before me, how the dream comes o'er me, Of those Attic suppers, and those vanished men). But no song hath woken, whether sung or spoken, Or hath left a token of such joy in me As "The Bells of Shandon That sound ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... were not many men as awkward as he was, or as uninteresting. Certainly, little Baron de Isombal would never have asked her in such a manner: "Do you want me to help you?" He would have helped her, he was so witty, so funny, so active. But there! He was a diplomatist, he had been about in the world, and had roamed everywhere, and, no doubt, dressed and undressed women who were arrayed ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... ultra-modern girl, gay, sparkling, witty, brilliant, temperamental; busily enjoying every minute of life; clad always in the most down-to-the-moment styles. He imagined her as popular, colorful, a wonderful companion for a happy, festive mood; a street that looked upon her companion streets ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... related to both of us," replied the witty son of Erin, and there were two monkeys on ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... about sixty-five. "Duc de Penthievre," Egalite's father-in-law, was Toulouse's son; Maine has left a famous Dowager, whom we see. Nothing more of notable about the one or the other.] She was never very beautiful; but had a world of grace and witty intelligence; and knew a Voltaire when she saw him. Was the soul of courtesy and benignity, though proud enough, and carrying her head at its due height; and was always very charming, in her lofty gracious way, to mankind. Interesting to all, were it only as a living fragment of the Grand ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... of Canada's story reads more like Russia than America, and shows to what length men will go when special privileges rather than equal rights prevail in a country. Gourlay met these infamous measures by penning some witty doggerel, headed "Gagged, gagged, by Jingo!" The editor in whose paper Gourlay's writings had appeared, was arrested, and the offending sheet was compelled to suspend. Gourlay himself is arrested for sedition and libel ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... mere stripling, Picked up in the field almost dead, With the blood through his sunny hair rippling From the horrible gash in the head. They say he was first in the action: Gay-hearted, quick-headed, and witty: He fought till he dropped with exhaustion At the gates ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... very witty," Miss Newville remarked. "He asked the selectmen several times to give their attention to a quagmire in the road near his house. After long delay, they stepped into a chaise and rode to the spot. Suddenly they found ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... and treated at a distance with profound respect by the king who had put her away. Louis married, in 1499, his predecessor's widow, Anne, Duchess of Brittany, twenty-three years of age, short, pretty, a little lame, witty, able, and firm. It was, on both sides, a marriage of policy, though romantic tales have been mixed up with it; it was a suitable and honorable royal arrangement, without any lively affection on one side or the other, but with mutual esteem and regard. As queen, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... this recommendation they were all discharged from prison, and taken down stairs. After they had finished their fund of stories, and had not a word more to say, they were remanded back to prison, and one, who called himself Don Quixotte, was set at liberty. This man, being extremely witty, afforded fine sport for William, (for that was our proprietor's name.) Indeed, for more than a fortnight he kept the whole house in what is called good humour. After Quixotte had concluded his harangues, William ...
— The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssiere; and History of a Bible • Anonymous
... were three of them to meet daily, to study and to ponder over. And types as far apart as the three points of a triangle; the man at her side, young, witty, agreeable; Cathewe, grave, kindly, and sometimes rather saturnine; Breitmann, proud and reserved; and each of them having rung true in some great crisis. If ever she loved a man . . . The thought remained unfinished and she glanced up and met Fitzgerald's eyes. They ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... clinics, and cry out that if the State fights disease for us it makes us paupers, though they never say that if the State fights the Germans for us it makes us cowards. Fortunately, when a habit of thought is silly it only needs steady treatment by ridicule from sensible and witty people to be put out of countenance and perish. Every year sees an increase in the number of persons employed in the Public Health Service, who would formerly have been mere adventurers in the Private Illness Service. To put it another way, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... the same old law-breaker is to keep them? What cheer can the religious sentiment yield, when that is suspected to be secretly dependent on the seasons of the year and the state of the blood? I knew a witty physician who found the creed in the biliary duct, and used to affirm that if there was disease in the liver, the man became a Calvinist, and if that organ was sound, he became a Unitarian. Very mortifying is the reluctant experience ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... are men who are born good just as others are born witty. What I mean is his nature. No simpler, more scrupulously delicate soul had ever lived in such a—a—comfortable envelope. How we used to laugh at Davidson's fine scruples! In short, he's thoroughly humane, and I don't imagine there can be much of any other sort of ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... grave, elderly sort,—Jenny sat in a corner taking notes of the gay scene, while Ethel yawned. But the Mouse got many a crumb of good conversation as she nestled close to Mrs. Homer, drinking in the wise and witty chat that went on between the friends who came to pay their respects to the Professor and his interesting wife. Each night Jenny had new and famous names to add to the list in her journal, and the artless pages were rich in anecdotes, descriptions, ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... him with the boyish trick he had just perpetrated. It might so easily have had fatal consequences. Goring, himself began to think it not so witty as he ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... thoroughly known, Jess was one of the most delightful companions possible to a man like John Niel. Never, till this long tete-a-tete at Pretoria, had he guessed how powerful and original was her mind, or how witty she could be when she liked. There was a fund of dry and suggestive humour about her, which, although it would no more bear being written down than champagne will bear standing in a tumbler, was very pleasant to listen to, more especially as John soon discovered that he was the ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... has burst away from its former submission, and in its independence has made the most important announcement of the sentence,—the witty climax. Emphasis is, to a large degree, a matter of position, but position cannot emancipate any clause from the thralldom of subordination. To emphasize one idea, subordinate ancillary ideas; make them take their proper rank in ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... these extracts is the story of the Cheshire Cat, which "vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end [20] of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone." Was this a witty or a happy hit at idealism, to illustrate ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... democracy, a life of singular activity had sprung up in that city, which was inhabited chiefly by mariners, fishermen, and artisans. The sentiments and conduct of the population, more wealthy than noble, discarded all earnestness amidst the giddy bustle and witty brilliance of their daily life, and oscillated between the grandest boldness of enterprise and elevation of spirit on the one hand, and a shameful frivolity and childish whim on the other. It may not be out of place, in connection with a crisis wherein the existence or destruction of nations of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... not always the speaker. Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases we can hardly make up ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... suppose the real John to be old, dull and ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again believes him to be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he is so far as Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue, though really simple and stupid. The ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... "Witty above her sex, but that's not all, Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall, Something of Shakespeare was in that, but this Wholly of him with whom she's now in blisse. Then, passenger, hast nere a tear To weep with her that wept with all That wept, yet ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... we know that Pope, was merely an ingenious fabulist; nay, more than this, that all the nations of past time were ingenious fabulists also, to whom the universe was a lyrical drama, and by whom whatsoever was said about it was merely a witty allegory, or a graceful lie, of which the entire upshot and consummation was a pretty statue in the middle of the court, or at ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... eye-lids, if the reader should be a critic. He had brought a book from his daughter's book-case. He remembered the volume—it was called A Book of a Thousand Stories—as the one his daughter Mary read aloud one evening, when the witty turns of speech put all the company into the best of humor. But, somehow, the wit had now lost its point—the joke had lost its zest—and let him try as he would to collect his scattered thoughts, and let him set his eyes on his book never so firmly, his fancy would go on long ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... woman, whom everybody seemed to like. She was different from the ordinary type; the kind of woman whom a man could not help respecting. She contrasted favourably with some of his recent female acquaintances who, however charming or witty, dissatisfied him in this or that particular. His cousin's devotion to child and husband appealed to his heart. She seemed to be ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... seem a Defect (says he) in the antient Stage, that the Characters introduc'd were so few, and those so common, as a covetous old Man, an amorous young, a witty Wench, a crafty Slave, a bragging Soldier. The Spectators met nothing upon the Stage, but what they met in the Streets, and at every Turn. All the Variety is drawn only from different and uncommon Events; whereas if the Characters are so too, the Diversity ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... polish, erudition, judgment, and dignity. In Leopardi, philosophical acumen equals the elegance of his style. Giordani (d. 1848), as a critic and an epigraphist, deserves notice for his fine judgment and pure taste, as do Tommaseo and Cattaneo, who are both epigrammatic, witty, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... The fact that I like it is a proof that it's bad, bad art, if it's a proof of anything. I never really admire anything good, can't bear, simply can't bear old masters, or"—I dimly recollected some witty essays by my brilliant fellow-countryman Mr. George Moore—"I detest Corot. My favourite artist ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... Chesterfield's Works says (ii. 3l9), 'that being desirous of giving a specimen of his Lordship's eloquence he has made choice of the three following speeches; the first in the strong nervous style of Demosthenes; the two latter in the witty, ironical manner of Tully.' Now the first of these speeches is not Johnson's, for it was reported in The Gent. Mag. for July, 1737, p. 409, nine months before his first contribution to that paper. In spite of great differences this report and that in Chesterfield's Works are substantially ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... for a matter of a half-hour in the fashion aforetime recorded—not very wise nor witty talk, if you will, but very pleasant to make. There were many pauses. There was much laughter over nothing in particular. There were any number of sentences ambitiously begun that ended nowhere. Altogether, it was just the sort of talk for ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... book-writing, lecturing, propagandist population of England has been bitten by him; it re-writes and popularises him; it even talks his jargon when it is criticising him. It began by regarding him as a brilliant and witty writer whom no one could take seriously; it now regards him as a serious, and indeed responsible, thinker whose wit is a matter of harmless inspiration, and ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... all these together, it is impossible to hate honest Jack Falstaff; If you observe them again, it is impossible to avoid loving him; He is the gay, the witty, the frolicksome, happy, and fat Jack Falstaff, the most delightful Swaggerer in all Nature.— You must love him for your own sake,—At the same time you cannot but love him for his own Talents; And when you have enjoy'd them, you cannot ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... said the spider, "you're witty and you're wise. How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes! I have a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf, If you'll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself." "I thank you, gentle sir," she said, "for what you're pleased ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... It is considered bad form to interrupt digestion with speech, as such a practice tends to draw the vital powers, it is said, away from the stomach to the head. Our forefathers were expected to shine in conversation, and be wise and witty while gulping their food between brilliant passages. I sat down at a table to which I was marshaled by a grave and reverend seignior in an imposing uniform. As I took my seat my weight set some machinery in motion. A few feet in front of me suddenly rose out of the table ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... of what was long to rule, in their slight framework of fable; the handling of the scenes by the way, the characterization, the natural dialogue, the vraisemblance of setting, the witty irony of observation, these are the elements of interest. Jane Austen's plots are mere tempests in tea-pots; yet she does not go to the extreme of the plotless fiction of the present. She has a story to tell, as Trollope would say, and knows how to tell it in such ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... so soft it was to the palate. The conversation, at first somewhat desultory, grew more concentrated as the time went on, though Zara spoke little and seemed absorbed in her own thoughts more than once. The Prince, warmed with the wine and the general good cheer, became witty and amusing in his conversation; he was a man who had evidently seen a good deal of the world, and who was accustomed to take everything in life a la bagatelle. He told us gay stories of his life in St. Petersburg; ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... besides of a luxuriant nature, an artist by instinct, and witty fellow; he loved arguments ad hominem, and defended the weak side tooth ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... adore her, and some don't care for her at all. It depends a good deal on yourself. She likes the ones who work, but she can be dreadfully sarcastic if she thinks you're stupid or lazy. She's fearfully clever, and says such witty things sometimes. Half-a-dozen of the girls absolutely worship her, but she's very fair, and won't have favourites. I like her better ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... dedicated to him the beautiful Ossianic one-act opera Uthal. The direct results of his teaching at the conservatoire were the steady, though not as yet unhealthy, decline of French opera into a lighter style, under the amiable and modest Boieldieu and the irresponsible and witty Auber; for, as we have seen, Cherubini was quite incapable of making his ideals intelligible by any means more personal than his music; and the crude grammatical rules which he mistook for the eternal principles of his own and of all music had not the smallest use ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... a mystery. Peter was neither particularly glib nor witty. Instinctively he knew the values of the full moon, the stars, and he had the look of a young man who has drunk at the fountain of life on more than one occasion, finding the waters thereof bitter, with a trace of sweetness and a ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... ass's milk, Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite: Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... roar. shake one's sides, split one's sides, hold both one's sides; roar with laughter, die with laughter. Adj. amusing, entertaining, diverting &c v.; recreational, recreative, lusory^; pleasant &c (pleasing) 829; laughable &c (ludicrous) 853; witty &c 842; fun, festive, festal; jovial, jolly, jocund, roguish, rompish^; playful, playful as a kitten; sportive, ludibrious^. funny; very funny, hilarious, uproarious, side-splitting. amused &c v.; pleased with a rattle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... The former was a trying affair. Some twelve thousand citizen-soldiers had to turn out, fully rigged and equipped, by early dawn, ready for any amount of drill and evolution. Many were the stories—more witty than generous—of the whereabout of their uniforms and accoutrements; as to their being deposited in Lombardian hands, or wholly used up since the last grand field-day some three years before. Such ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... voice vibrated with expression and the mock-serious bantering tones in which she delivered Rosalind's witty speeches caused Mr. Southard to smile and nod approvingly as she gave full value to the immortal lines. Her change of voice from Rosalind to Orlando was wholly delightful, and so charmingly did she depict both characters that when she ended with Orlando's exit she received a little ovation ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... it peace, Jehu,? What hast thou to do with peace? turn thee behind me. Peace is not the matter, but following, and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans, and lukewarm persons, think they may accommodate points of religion, by middle way, and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements; as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man. Both these extremes are to be avoided; which will be done, if the league of Christians, penned by our Savior himself, were in two cross clauses thereof, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... witty young men, 'Twas Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John; With that they spied the jolly pinder, As he sate under ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... it was used by Robert Wilson for a contest in extempore versification. Francis Meres, in his Palladis Tamia, writes: "And so is now our witty Wilson, who for learning and extemporall wit in this faculty is without compare or compeere, as, to his great and eternal commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... nature. They had fiery Slavonic blood in their veins, and Slavonic hearts beat high with hope in their bosoms. They had all the delightful Slavonic zeal, the Slavonic dash, the Slavonic imagination. They were easy to stir, they were swift in action, they were witty in speech, they were mystic and poetic in soul, and, like the Irish of the present day, they revelled in the joy of party politics, and discussed religious questions with the keenest zest. With them religion came first and foremost. All their poetry was religious; ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... is chiefly notable as affording the first sign that Fielding was now leaving party politics for the wider, and much duller, field of Constitutional liberty. A man might die for the British Constitution; but to be witty about it would tax the resources of a Lucian. And, accordingly, in place of that gay young spark Mr Pasquin, who laid his cudgel with so hearty a good will on the shoulders of the offending 'Great Man,' there now steps out a ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... more popular in England than he had ever been in America, and he openly admitted that he disliked to resign his position. Professor Child said, in 1882: "Lowell's conversation is witty, with a basis of literary cramming; and that seems to be what the English like. He went to twenty-nine dinner parties in the month of June, and made a speech ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... Bremen, a personage of very different character from himself. Adalbert, while a churchman of great ability, was a courtier full of ambitious views. He was one of the most polished and learned men of his time, at once handsome, witty, and licentious, his character being in the strongest contrast to the stern harshness of Hanno and the coarse manners of the nobles of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... return from a war that was just ended, in which they bad distinguished themselves by their great bravery, came to visit Leonato. Among these were Don Pedro, the Prince of Arragon, and his friend Claudio, who was a lord of Florence; and with them came the wild and witty Benedick, and he was a ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... he exposed himself to the ridicule of this most discerning body, not less witty than virtuous. Of shame he was incapable. He would again and again rise in his place, totally forgetful of past flagellation, and again and again convince Mr. Speaker and the honorable members: persisting to labour, in the hope of making them all as profound reasoners as himself. No matter ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... began to drop in, among them Mr Doubleday, who was very witty on the subject of my appointment, and told Wallop he understood I was to be admitted into partnership next week, and would ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... neighbourhood gave him standing better than that of many an upstart baronet or knight, and with it health and wealth. He had a wife who was acknowledged universally to be one of the most beautiful, charming, and witty women in the county, whose devotion to himself was so marked and open that it became a public jest; who had, moreover, presented him with healthy and promising offspring. In addition to all these good things he had suddenly become in his own line one of the most ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... good spirits and good humour, except the Countess, whose vacant mind, overcome by the languor of idleness, would neither suffer her to be happy herself, or to contribute to the happiness of others. Mademoiselle Bearn, attempting to be witty, directed her badinage against Henri, who answered, because he could not well avoid it, rather than from any inclination to notice her, whose liveliness sometimes amused, but whose conceit and insensibility often ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe |
