William Shakespeare Quotes on Wit (41 Quotes)

For what says Quinapalus? Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.

A good old man, sir. He will be talking. As they say, when the age is in, the wit is out.

It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all
the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it
apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and
delectable shapes; which delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue,
which is the birth, becomes excellent wit.

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To such a sudden flood of mutiny. They that have done this deed are honourable What private griefs they have, alas I know not, That made them do it they are wise and honourable, And will no doubts wit.

He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about t'expound this dream.

Wit would be out of fashion.

This fellow's wise enough to play the fool, And to do that well craves a kind of wit.

Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,
And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;
Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.

Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow
enough, and one that loves quails, but he has not so much brain
as ear-wax; and the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his
brother, the bull, the primitive statue and oblique memorial of
cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his
brother's leg-to what form but that he is, should wit larded with
malice, and malice forced with wit, turn him to?

Devise, wit write, pen for I am for whole volumes in folio.

A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit, whither, wilt'

Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit,
Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.

'Tis not my fault: the boar provok'd my tongue;
Be wreak'd on him, invisible commander;
'Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;
I did but act, he's author of thy slander:
Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet
Could rule them both without ten women's wit.

Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
I say again, hath made a gross revolt,
Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
Of here and everywhere.

Brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes.

O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating Time.

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts-
O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!

I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts, do crownèd sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store.

If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
The one's for use, the other useth it.

Thy noble shape is but a form of wax
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier's flask,
is get afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismemb'red with thine own defence.

How now, wit wither wander you.

Some grief shows much of love;
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

She hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults.

I praise God for you, sir your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange with-out heresy.

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action nor utterance, nor the power of speech, to stir men's blood. I only speak right on. I tell you that which you yourselves do know.

To be in love- where scorn is bought with groans,
Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment's mirth
With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;
If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;
If lost, why then a grievous labour won;
However, but a folly bought with wit,
Or else a wit by folly vanquished.

If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so,
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know.

He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.

There's many a man has more hair than wit.

Go, write it in a martial hand be curst and brief it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun of invention taunt him with the licence of ink if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss and as many lies as will lie in thy shee

O, learn to read what silent love hath writ,
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend
my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to
defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these; and at all these
wards I lie at, at a thousand watches.

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelm'd all her litter but one.

And writers say, as the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.