"Witticism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had feared, presently she rose and went to her room. Myrtle took her place on the sofa. Gilbert Penny vanished with a broad witticism at the well known preference of youth, in certain situations, for its own council. David Forsythe made a wry face at Howat. Caroline gaily laid her arm across her mother's shoulder and propelled her from the room. David stood awkwardly ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... you must be prepared for slight variations in the form of the same key-syllable. Consider these words: wise, wiseacre, wisdom, wizard, witch, wit, unwitting, to wit, outwit, twit, witticism, witness, evidence, providence, invidious, advice, vision, visit, vista, visage, visualize, envisage, invisible, vis-a-vis, visor, revise, supervise, improvise, proviso, provision, view, review, survey, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... growled' Hollock; "I never drink to horses, nor to their fathers either:" and with this wonderful witticism he ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... time to be attributed. The famous saying that "Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris," is generally supposed to be his, though Oliver Wendell Holmes told me one day that he himself was really the author of it; but, if a keen witticism was floating about fatherless in the Boston circles it drifted to Tom Appleton as putative parent. His, too, was a kindly nature, and many a rising artist found his way to a larger recognition ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... persist in calling me Jacques, just as you persist in calling Belinda, Campana in die—Bell in day. What a deplorable witticism! I could find a better in a moment. Stay," he added, "I have ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... the necessity of contributing anything else to exchange and of taking any part in the labors of the workshop. From this false idea of monopoly has come the Greek name of usury, tokos, as much as to say the child or the increase of capital, which caused Aristotle to perpetrate this witticism: COINS BEGET NO CHILDREN. But the metaphor of the usurers has prevailed over the joke of the Stagyrite; usury, like rent, of which it is an imitation, has been declared a perpetual right; and only very lately, by a half-return to the principle, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... made; he will receive the income of a Cabinet Minister, and his fame will spread from planet to planet. Why, to-morrow, Sir, that commonplace phrase, 'Quite permiscuous! Who'd ha' thought of it?' will be upon the lips of every inhabitant; it will receive brevet-rank as a witticism of the first order, it will enrich the language, and enjoy an immortality, which will endure—ah, till the introduction of a newer catchword! I assure you the most successful book—the wittiest comedy, the divinest poem, have never ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... course been called handsome in his childhood,—what heir to a Throne ever lived that was not beautiful, to his nurse at least?—and in his early youth he had been grossly flattered for his cleverness as well as his good looks. Every small attempt at witticism,—every poor joke he could invent, adapt or repeat, was laughed at approvingly in a chorus of admiration by smirking human creatures, male and female, who bowed and bobbed up and down before the lad like strange dolphins disporting themselves on dry land. ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... with the ease of a Celimene, pretending to ignore that Calyste was there. La Palferine had the cleverness to depart after a brilliant witticism, leaving the two ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... affected witticism of the critic, whom I intimately knew—and I believe he meant little harm! His friends imagined even that this was the solitary attempt at wit he had ever made in his life; for after a lapse of years, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... changes possible upon that witticism while they mounted and rode away, every man of them secretly glad of some excuse for making overtures to the Old Man. Spite of the excitement of getting on to their claims, and of watching strangers driving ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... sir,—'The Scripter moveth us in sun'ry places'! Hor!- hor!-hor!—"and Bainton burst into a hoarse chuckle of mirth, entirely delighted with his own witticism, and walked off, not waiting to see whether its effect on his master was one of offence or appreciation. He was pretty sure of his ground, however, for he left John Walden laughing, a laugh that irradiated his face with some of the sunshine stored up in his mind. And ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... entertainment were a perfect success. Such jokes as she made and such laughter as she managed to elicit through the medium of the smallest of them, and such aptness and tact as she displayed in keeping up the general fusillade of bon-mots and repartee. It would have been impossible for a witticism to fall short of its mark under her active superintendence, even if witticisms had been prone to fall short in Vagabondia, which they decidedly were not. She kept Griffith busy, too, from first to last, perhaps because she felt it to be the safest plan; at any rate, she held him near ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... throughout the colonies. We have seen that even Washington himself seriously thought of retreating behind the Alleghanies, which was virtual surrender. Even he, if report be true, began to think of the halter, and Franklin's little witticism, on signing the Declaration, of, "Come, gentlemen, we must all hang together or we shall hang separately," was getting uncomfortably ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... not seem to do his ability entire justice. Indeed, for fifteen years previous to the time of my visit his published writings had been rather meagre. But I believe he was justly credited with an elaborate witticism to the following effect: "In view of the fact that the only human being ever known to have been killed by a meteorite was a monk, we may concede that after four hundred years the Pope's bull against the comet has ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... was selected by Maxence Gilet, on account of her character and her talent for cookery, as the Leonarde of the Order. Pere Cognet might be about fifty-six years old; he was thick-set, very much under his wife's rule, and, according to a witticism which she was fond of repeating, he only saw things with a good eye—for he was blind of the other. In the course of seven years, that is, from 1816 to 1823, neither wife nor husband had betrayed what went on nightly at their house, or who they were that shared in the plot; they felt ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... when Wallace asked for the rat-trap's delight; and when Lloyd dropped a cruller on the floor and thumped his heel to show its weight; and when Wallace said: "Don't jam or jar Miss Monroe, Jesse!" But when, in retort for this latest witticism, Martie said: "Put your hand where it hurts, Wallace, and show Mama"; the laughter changed to actual shrieks of mirth; Jesse indulging in a deep "ha-ha-ha!" and Mabel hammering her heels madly together and sobbing put faintly that she should ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... was a pyramid poised on its apex. All the gravitations of human nature were constantly tending to topple it over, and it could be maintained upright, or rather upwrong (if you will pardon the feeble witticism), by an elaborate system of constantly renewed props and buttresses and guy-ropes in the form of laws. A central Congress and forty state legislatures, turning out some twenty thousand laws a year, could not ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... Scotchman, or he may want your blood before you get to the cigarettes. North Britons are very jealous of the reputation of their national poet, and permit no jokes upon the subject. You see, in letting off your witticism at a Scotchman, you would have to explain that it was a joke. You might also hint that it was "hard lines" for the Railway Companies concerned; but this will provoke gloom rather than gaiety amongst those who have invested in Caledonians ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... nothing of his own; he borrows all from a greater master in his own profession, and, which is worse, improves nothing which he finds. Nature fails him; and, being forced to his old shift, he has recourse to witticism. This passes, indeed, with his soft admirers, and gives him the preference to Virgil in their esteem; but let them like for themselves, and not prescribe to others, for our author needs ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... afraid you'll have to go. The fact is, we should have to higher you before we could hire you;" and the clerk laughed at his witticism. ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... whose secret of pronunciation I had been trying to filch for weeks—some delicate little jewel of a word, faint as a perfume, expressive as only a tiny Parisian word can be—and he did so in the politest manner in the world, adding some little witticism which I do not recall. Whereupon I went home ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... whom we have yet scarcely introduced to the reader, was a tall, slim, but firmly-knit youth, with a kind, gentle disposition. He was always open, straightforward, and polite. He never indulged in broad humour, though he enjoyed it much, seldom ventured on a witticism, was rather shy in the company of his companions, and spoke little; but for a quiet, pleasant tete-a-tete there was not a man in the ship equal to Tom Singleton. His countenance was Spanish-looking and handsome, his hair black, short, and curling, and his budding moustache was soft and dark ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... bed. Here she was confronted with a possible prospect of that proverbial bed she might be making in her willfulness, and on which she must lie, in the photograph of a somewhat serious young man of refined features—Reuben Waters—stuck in her window-frame. Salomy Jane smiled over her last witticism regarding him and enjoyed, it, like your true humorist, and then, catching sight of her own handsome face in the little mirror, smiled again. But wasn't it funny about that horse-thief getting off after all? Good Lordy! Fancy Reuben hearing he was alive and going round with ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... Without a single dissenting voice, Tinkletown said Anderson had very much the "best of the bargain." George Ray meant all right when he said, "A fool for luck," but he was obliged to explain thoroughly the witticism before the proud Mr. Crow ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon |
