“It has been more wittily than charitably said that hell is paved with good intentions; they have their place in heaven also.”

Turning a familiar warning about intentions into a defence of sincere moral purpose · Prose, Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies, 1829

• Compassion
• Morality
• Wit

“The reason for depopulation? Presence of mind.”

Original: La cause de la dépopulation? La présence d'esprit. — A characteristic piece of compressed wit, turning an apparently serious question into a linguistic paradox. · Commerce (French)

• Humour
• Irony
• Wit

“The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.”

A dry observation on how difficult it is to recognise one's own capacity to bore others · Essay collection, Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Character
• Humour
• Wit

“The enclosed may rightly be termed a serenade because I wrote it in the middle of the night, not at another’s window, but at my OWN.”

A playful glimpse of Ledwidge's self-directed humour · Letter to Lord Dunsany, 1 August 1914

• Humour
• Wit
• Writing

“Some of the best things said about it and what it foretells are little better than self-conscious talk to fill up time.”

A wry warning against criticism that sounds impressive without yet understanding a new art form · Essay, The New Fiction, as Henry Holbeach, 1880

• Criticism
• Literature
• Wit

“I am like a sailor who has escaped disaster only because he has never ventured far out to sea.”

Original: Ведь я то же, что иной моряк, с которым оттого только и беды не случалось, что он не хаживал далеко в море. — At a celebration of his long career, Krylov answered praise with striking self-deprecation. · Conversation at his literary jubilee, recorded by P. A. Pletnev, 1838 (Russian)

• Fame
• Humility
• Wit

“The literary faculty of classical scholars is poor, and sometimes worse.”

A characteristically unsparing judgement on his own profession · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

• Criticism
• Literature
• Wit

“Mountains will labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be born.”

Original: Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. — A witty critique of grand artistic promises that result in trivial outputs. · Ars Poetica (Latin)

• Criticism
• Humour
• Wit

“I firmly believe that the health of autograph hunters, as a class, is excellent.”

A dry punchline to Aldrich's suspicion of collectors who pleaded illness to obtain authors' signatures · Essay, The Autograph Hunter, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Books
• Humour
• Wit

“If the sentiment must stand, twirl it a little into an apophegm, stick a flower in it, gild it with a costly expression, let it strike the fancy, the ear, or the heart.”

Witty practical advice on turning an ordinary sentiment into memorable poetry · Letter to William Mason, 24 March 1758

• Poetry
• Wit
• Writing

“Any conversation could be ruined unless it had a certain amount of witticism.”

Wit as essential to good conversation · Conversation (as reported in Griffin Daily News, 1971)

• Conversation
• Society
• Wit

“God made the rose out of what was left of woman at the creation. The great difference is, we feel the rose's thorns when we gather it; and the other's when we have had it for some time.”

A witty comparison of roses and women · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Roses
• Wit
• Women

“I always wondered why God made Bierce.”

Dry retort after Bierce had publicly doubted his truthfulness · Conversation, reply to Ambrose Bierce

• Humour
• Wit
• Writers

“So if I did not contradict myself, I would be contradicting myself.”

Original: De modo que si no me contradijese estaría en contradicción conmigo mismo. — A witty defence of a naturally changeable character · Preface, La guerra literaria (Spanish)

• Change
• Character
• Wit

“A sheep in sheep's clothing.”

A dry twist on the proverb, used as a literary character-sketch · Conversation, of T. Sturge Moore, c. 1906

• Character
• Poets
• Wit

“In this little Comedy of Deceptions there are as many players as men have fancies.”

A witty observation on the ingenuity people display when pursuing their private obsessions · Essay, The Autograph Hunter, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Character
• Humour
• Wit

“I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.”

A compact pun on Cambridge as both refuge and madhouse · Conversation, recorded by Grant Richards

• Home
• Humour
• Wit

“True wit is nature to advantage dressed, what oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.”

Defining literary brilliance as giving perfect clarity to universal truths · Preface to Several Poems

• Nature
• Wit
• Writing

“Join the army and see the next world.”

A dark quip on military service turned into a joke about mortality · Letter, The Collected Letters of Dylan Thomas

• War
• Wit

“Music is the most impersonal of things and words the most personal, and that is why musicians do not like words.”

Wryly contrasting the abstract character of music with the personal nature of language · Essay, The Musician and the Orator

• Language
• Music
• Wit

“Poets, sir, succeed better in fiction than in truth.”

A witty explanation for why his panegyric on Cromwell was judged better than his later praise of the king · Conversation with Charles II, as reported in anecdotal biographies

• Fiction
• Truth
• Wit

“The fools believe that joking means not being serious.”

Original: Les sots croient que plaisanter c'est ne pas être sérieux. — Valéry defends humour as compatible with seriousness and intelligence. · Tel quel (French)

• Humour
• Intelligence
• Wit

“Refrain from blaming me, for blame is a provocation, and cure me with the very thing that caused the disease.”

Original: دع عنك لومي فإن اللوم إغراء، ودوني بالتي كانت هي الداء — A famous paradoxical remark on indulgence and defiance · Divan preface and oral traditions (Arabic)

• Desire
• Pleasure
• Wit

“It is, God help me, not the philologists who make languages.”

Original: Det ær, Gud straffe mig, ikke Filologerne, som lager Sprogene. — A witty insistence that living speech is created by people rather than academics · Speech to the Student Union, 1908 (Norwegian)

• Culture
• Language
• Wit