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Wit. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.


Ambrose Bierce

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Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
AMBROSE BIERCE There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE Watch out he's winding the watch of his wit, by and by it will strike.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
WILLIAM HAZLITT The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of h...
JAMES THURBER The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of h...
JAMES THURBER The man who sees consistency in things is a wit; the man who sees the inconsistency in things is a h...
G. K. CHESTERTON There were three wedding cakes, curious and historical but tasty, each labeled with a calligraphed c...
ALLEGRA GOODMAN Renew your mind by washing it with truth: God's Word.
CRAIG GROESCHEL He's winding up the watch of his wit. By and by it will strike.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The rotten Apple spoils his Companion
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN But in answer to your question about the conspiracy angle, I think that any historian worth his salt...
OLIVER STONE Stop a minute, Ambrose!" interrupted Master Nathaniel. "I've got a sudden silly whim that we should ...
HOPE MIRRLEES By his father he is English, by his mother he is American - to my mind the blend which makes the per...
MARK TWAIN Great balls of fire. Don't bother me anymore, and don't call me sugar.
MARGARET MITCHELL Woman! The peg on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch, and the...
HELEN ROWLAND Woman: the peg on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch and the ...
HELEN ROWLAND All day long you sit and sew,
Stitch life down for fear it grow,

Stitch life down fo...
EDITH SITWELL Sebastian says modestly that though his twin resembled him very much , she was reputed to be beautif...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Wit must be foiled by wit: cut a diamond with a diamond.
WILLIAM CONGREVE Wit must be foiled by wit : cut a diamond with a diamond
WILLIAM CONGREVE Time is a teacher which in the end it kills all it's students. (Synchronicity 2015 Film)
DEYTH BANGER His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home.
WILLIAM COWPER Progress in civilization has been accompanied by progress in cookery.
FANNIE FARMER Rich with the spoils of nature.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE Ellison was prominent on the lecture circuit even in the Black Aesthetic days of the Sixties when hi...
DARRYL PINCKNEY Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?
BIBLE The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of h...
JAMES THURBER The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of h...
JAMES THURBER The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of h...
JAMES THURBER Water flows because it's willing.
MARTY RUBIN Go with the flow even if there are rapids ahead.
JIM GENOVESE Don't resist life, flow with it.
JIM GENOVESE Life is more like dancing than wrestling if you follow its rhythm.
JIM GENOVESE The problem with compassion is that it is not photogenic.
SEBASTIAN HORSLEY Longing hearts could only stand so much longing.
MARGARET MITCHELL An intellectual is someone who avoids the mundane by lowering his handicap.
RICHARD REEVES Many a man gets weary of clamping down on his rough impulses, which if given occasional release woul...
HENRY S. HASKINS ...and the great advantage of being a literary woman, was that you could go everywhere and do everyt...
HENRY JAMES With the Lincoln assassination, the South didn't feel it could mourn along with the North. But G...
CANDICE MILLARD sharp, dry wit and his brash dealings with contestants.
LAUREN CORRAO Suddenly she felt strong and happy. She was not afraid of the darkness or the fog and she knew with ...
MARGARET MITCHELL During the post-Soviet anarchy and the rush for the spoils of war, Hekmatyar spent most of his time ...
TERRY GLAVIN To the victors belong the spoils. (The spoils to the victors.)
GENERAL FERDINAND FOCH Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? / It is neither ...
BIBLE This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
SID ZIFF Dive into the river of the present, but don't thrash about, go with the flow.
JIM GENOVESE By physical liberty I mean the right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of a...
ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL The food eaten by hermits in the forest, milk, Soma juice, meat which is not prepared with spices , ...
GURU NANAK The Salt Merchant and His Ass A peddler drove his Ass to the seashore to buy salt. His road home la...
AESOP Her joke of a name aside, her general unprettiness aside, she was, in terms of permanently memorable...
J.D. SALINGER I like to not have to be 'on' for anybody.
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE The Legend of Zorro,
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE Louis, Louis, Louis...Stil whining, Louis! Are you quite finished? I've had to listen to that for ce...
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE Louis: I'm flesh and blood, but not human. I haven't been human for two hundred years.
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE Louis: You see that old woman? That will never happen to you. You will never grow old, and you will ...
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE The shoes always tell the story,' said the shoe poet.
'Not always,' I countered.
'Yes, alw...
RUTA SEPETYS No American worth his salt should go around looking for a root. I advance this in all modesty, as a ...
PERCY WYNHAM LEWIS No American worth his salt should go around looking for a root. I advance this in all modesty, as a ...
WYNDHAM LEWIS Later that day when I passed the Admin lieutenant and the Sargeant standing by the Desk, I said casu...
EDWARD CONLON Name the fears that are holding you back. It's the equivalent of flooding the boogeyman with light.
GINA GREENLEE Wit is a treacherous dart. It is perhaps the only weapon with which it is possible to stab oneself i...
GEOFFREY BOCCA I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES It certainly stands out but I think it spoils the building itself. It'll look more suited on a moder...
BARBARA ANDERSON It counts, what an individual contributes to the development of his society, by his intellectual mat...
DEVASKI This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people.
JOHN WYCLIFFE The Germans wit is in his fingers.
GEORGE HERBERT The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases hi...
PETER DE VRIES They knew that love snatched in the face of danger and death was doubly sweet for the strange excite...
MARGARET MITCHELL Take my handkerchief, Scarlett. Never, at any crisis of your life, have I known
you to have a h...
MARGARET MITCHELL Maybe that's what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit t...
EMILY GIFFIN O full and splendid Moon, whom I
Have, from this desk, seen climb the sky
So many a midnig...
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE The problem with me is that nothing embarrasses me.
DAVID HASSELHOFF Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. ...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feath...
CHARLES LAMB Here the Frenchman, Spaniard, and Englishman all passed, leaving each his legend; and a brilliant an...
HERVEY ALLEN Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shoptalk of the scientist and the consolation of the housewife, ...
PHYLLIS MCGINLEY Drowning his misery with alcohol and junk food was like sticking plaster on an infected cut. It mask...
JAY NORTHCOTE The North American intellectual tradition began, I maintain, in the encounter of British Romanticism...
CAMILLE PAGLIA Leaving American disaster victims to languish is morally reprehensible and un-American.
CEDRIC RICHMOND The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys w...
FLORENCE KING Remembering something from the past? you are creating it right now as evidence for who you are now.
FREDERICK DODSON I intended to be famous by the time I was 16 and rich by the time I was 20. Curiously, it didn't...
KARL SCHROEDER The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be ...
AYN RAND PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovide...
AMBROSE BIERCE Well, Valek, any new promotions?” the Commander asked
“No. But Maren shows promise. Unfortu...
MARIA V. SNYDER Sense is our helmet, wit is but the plume; The plume exposes, 'tis our helmet saves. Sense is ...
EDWARD YOUNG If you consume too much salt, it can cause water retention. When this happens, your body usually res...
MICHAEL GREGER For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
THOMAS PAINE The history of American women is all about leaving home - crossing oceans and continents, or getting...
GAIL COLLINS The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness.
ROBERT MAYNARD HUTCHINS The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness.
ROBERT M. HUTCHINS Within he felt that faint stirring of derision for the whole business of life which is the salt of t...
H.G. WELLS The art of cookery is the art of poisoning mankind, by rendering the appetite still importunate, whe...
FRANCOIS FENELON Painting is something that takes place among the colors, and one has to leave them alone completely,...
RAINER MARIA RILKE Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
ABRAHAM COWLEY The people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.
DANIEL WEBSTER

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AMBROSE BIERCE The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
AMBROSE BIERCE Marriage. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, m...
AMBROSE BIERCE Bride. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
AMBROSE BIERCE What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republi...
AMBROSE BIERCE Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking th...
AMBROSE BIERCE Learning. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
AMBROSE BIERCE Consult. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
AMBROSE BIERCE Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.
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AMBROSE BIERCE An acquaintance is someone we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
AMBROSE BIERCE A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
AMBROSE BIERCE Beauty. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
AMBROSE BIERCE Let me tell you what a writer is. A writer takes comprehensive views, holds large convictions, makes...
AMBROSE BIERCE Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
AMBROSE BIERCE Don't steal; thou it never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Age. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no...
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AMBROSE BIERCE Destiny. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
AMBROSE BIERCE Edible. Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pi...
AMBROSE BIERCE Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.
AMBROSE BIERCE Erudition. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
AMBROSE BIERCE Saint. A dead sinner revised and edited.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
AMBROSE BIERCE Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Take not God's name in vain; select a time when it will have effect.
AMBROSE BIERCE A prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
AMBROSE BIERCE Bigot, one who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
AMBROSE BIERCE Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly un...
AMBROSE BIERCE Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration t...
AMBROSE BIERCE Admiration; is our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
AMBROSE BIERCE To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
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AMBROSE BIERCE An optimist is a proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Egotist. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
AMBROSE BIERCE An egotist is a person interested in himself than in me!
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AMBROSE BIERCE Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is please...
AMBROSE BIERCE A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man, who has no gills.
AMBROSE BIERCE Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a cont...
AMBROSE BIERCE Dog. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the worl...
AMBROSE BIERCE Physician -- One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
AMBROSE BIERCE Divorce. A resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
AMBROSE BIERCE Consul. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is give...
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AMBROSE BIERCE Confidante. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.
AMBROSE BIERCE The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
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AMBROSE BIERCE A funeral is a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker.
AMBROSE BIERCE An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.
AMBROSE BIERCE To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
AMBROSE BIERCE An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly k...
AMBROSE BIERCE Historian. A broad -- gauge gossip.
AMBROSE BIERCE Habit is a shackle for the free.
AMBROSE BIERCE Laughter -- An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarti...
AMBROSE BIERCE Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
AMBROSE BIERCE Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
AMBROSE BIERCE Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, ad...
AMBROSE BIERCE Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
AMBROSE BIERCE Experience. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly tha...
AMBROSE BIERCE The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
AMBROSE BIERCE When in Rome, do as Rome does.
AMBROSE BIERCE To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Bore -- a person who talks when you wish him to listen.
AMBROSE BIERCE Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by frie...
AMBROSE BIERCE Irreligion. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.
AMBROSE BIERCE Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things withou...
AMBROSE BIERCE Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
AMBROSE BIERCE Genealogy. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his o...
AMBROSE BIERCE Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
AMBROSE BIERCE Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
AMBROSE BIERCE Woman absent is woman dead.
AMBROSE BIERCE The covers of this book are too far apart.
AMBROSE BIERCE Abscond. To move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their deso...
AMBROSE BIERCE A coward is one who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
AMBROSE BIERCE Conservative. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wi...
AMBROSE BIERCE The Senate is a body of old men charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
AMBROSE BIERCE Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserte...
AMBROSE BIERCE ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply in...
AMBROSE BIERCE Acquaintance is a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor and obscure, and intima...
AMBROSE BIERCE ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn."Eat ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction o...
AMBROSE BIERCE Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
AMBROSE BIERCE Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
AMBROSE BIERCE International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoulde...
AMBROSE BIERCE DIPLOMACY, n. Lying in state, or the patriotic art of lying for one's country.
AMBROSE BIERCE Calamities are of two kinds. Misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
AMBROSE BIERCE Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
AMBROSE BIERCE A bride is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
AMBROSE BIERCE Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
AMBROSE BIERCE There are 4 kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
AMBROSE BIERCE FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
AMBROSE BIERCE ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Mus...
AMBROSE BIERCE HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was a com...
AMBROSE BIERCE ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A m...
AMBROSE BIERCE YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the So...
AMBROSE BIERCE Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo
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AMBROSE BIERCE One who is in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
AMBROSE BIERCE OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics. Obsession was onc...
AMBROSE BIERCE Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.
AMBROSE BIERCE Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
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AMBROSE BIERCE When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover.
AMBROSE BIERCE Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of...
AMBROSE BIERCE Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else.
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AMBROSE BIERCE LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property s...
AMBROSE BIERCE The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
AMBROSE BIERCE Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
AMBROSE BIERCE Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth ke...
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AMBROSE BIERCE The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
AMBROSE BIERCE TELEPHONE n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeab...
AMBROSE BIERCE Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
AMBROSE BIERCE Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
AMBROSE BIERCE Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
AMBROSE BIERCE Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and wa...
AMBROSE BIERCE The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
AMBROSE BIERCE