wit

Unless man has the wit and the grit to build his civilization on something better than material power, it is surely idle to talk of plans for a stable peace.

Accept a miracle, instead of wit See two dull lines, with Stanhope's pencil writ.

The moving finger writes; and having writ Moves on: not all your piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

Deprived of the company of fools, a great wit does not seem half so clever.

A man of wit could often be embarrassed without the company of fools.

In most of mankind, gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favours. Note: A saying ascribed to Sir Robert Walpole by Hazlitt in his Wit and Humor: "The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favours" is obviously derived from La Rochefoucauld.

Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit.

Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.

Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.