"Witticism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mrs. Whiffler, as being deeply responsible for the twins, their charms and singularities, has taken no share; but she now relates, in broken English, a witticism of little Dick's bearing upon the subject just discussed, which delights Mr. Whiffler beyond measure, and causes him to declare that he would have sworn that was Dick's if he had heard it anywhere. Then he requests that Mrs. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the Austrian alliance. A double motive influenced the Marchioness of Pompadour. Her vanity was gratified by the advances of Maria Theresa, and revenge roused her soul against Frederic of Prussia, who had indulged in a cutting witticism upon ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... a word for everybody; and, turning rapidly from one to another, gave utterance to some hasty witticism, which was sure to be followed by peals of laughter. To the females as well as to the men, he addressed his discourse. Heaven only knows what he said to them, but he caused smiles and blushes to mantle their ingenuous faces. I am, indeed, very much inclined to believe that Marnoo, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... having decided to teach rather than preach, I embarked for Germany to enjoy a year of foreign study. Like Western professors in general (to borrow the witticism of President Eliot) I occupied not so much a chair as a sofa, and felt that I needed enlargement for the performance of ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... late in the day, Mr. Codlin pitched the show in a convenient spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene. The child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, was roused from her meditation by a loud laugh at some witticism of ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... said Munt, with his witticism manner. Neither he nor Mrs. Brinkley was particularly glad to be together, but at Mrs. James Bellingham's it was well not to fling any companionship away till you were sure of something else. Besides, Mrs. Brinkley was indolent and good-natured, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... almost everybody calls me Dory. But I don't care what they call me, if they don't call me too late to supper, or don't call me at all, as nobody did to-night," replied Dory. And an emphatic wrenching at his stomach, just at the moment he spoke, compelled him to repeat that ancient witticism. ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... remark that his religion was "the religion of all sensible men." and upon being asked what this religion might be, that Oriental is said to have replied, "All sensible men keep that to themselves." Now Disraeli could no more have made such a witticism than he could have flown through the air; his mind was far too extravagant for such pointed phrases. Froude quotes the story (page 205 of this book) but rightly ascribes it to Rogers, a very different man from Disraeli— an Englishman with a mastery ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... wolves at any rate," replied the giant, with a wide grin at his witticism. "And if Yellow Franz is the particular wolf you're after, my friend, why here I am," he concluded, addressing the American with ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... words have a hostile intent. Ridicule makes a person or thing the subject of contemptuous merriment; derision seeks to make the object derided seem utterly despicable—to laugh it to scorn. Chaff is the coarse witticism of the streets, perhaps merry, oftener malicious; jeering is loud, rude ridicule, as of a hostile crowd or mob. Mockery is more studied, and may include mimicry and personal violence, as well as scornful speech. A satire is a formal composition; ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... time the "happiness of being beautiful," Delphine also enjoyed almost exclusively, in her set, that of being good. In this respect, she was superior to her mother who for the sake of a witticism, never hesitated to offend another. She had but few enemies, and, wishing to have none, tried to win over those who were inimical towards her. For twenty-five years she played the diplomat among all the rivals in talent and in glory who frequented her salon in ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... and in the evening at the Versailles or at the Closerie des Lilas Clutton was inclined to taciturnity. He sat quietly, with a sardonic expression on his gaunt face, and spoke only when the opportunity occurred to throw in a witticism. He liked a butt and was most cheerful when someone was there on whom he could exercise his sarcasm. He seldom talked of anything but painting, and then only with the one or two persons whom he thought worth while. Philip wondered whether there was in him really anything: his ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... grinning those days at her flutterings. On more than one occasion he told her, none too flatteringly, that she made him think of an officious hen with a brood which a high rate of mortality and prowling night-raiders had left bereft of all save two of her hatch. But this particular witticism did not bother her in the least, perhaps because she realized how pat the comparison was. Instead of silencing him she showed him the letter which she constructed some days later—constructed most painstakingly, the second week ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... the boy had something on his mind!" said the doctor to Mr Cookson, "but that is impossible. At his age we possess no minds worth speaking about to have anything upon;" and so he lost the scent after hitting it off to go on the trail of a witticism, which after all ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... France, aided by the richest osteological collections which then existed in Europe, M. G. Cuvier passed an active and a comparatively long life, in a region abounding in fossil bones, without having established any other principle in osteology than a witticism which he had been unable for a moment to take seriously himself, because he had not yet investigated or sufficiently studied the science of organization, which I even doubt, to speak frankly, if he ever did. Otherwise, he would himself soon have perceived the falsity of his assertion that a ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... no example, no fashion, no witticism, no foolish desire of rising above what knaves call prejudices, tempt you to excuse, extenuate or ridicule the least breach of morality, but upon every occasion shew the greatest abhorrence of such proceedings, and hold virtue and religion in ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... inclined to witticism rather than to enthusiasm, said of the Napoleon of 1811: "His genius controlled every one's thoughts. I believed that he was born to rule Fortune, and it seemed to be natural enough that people should prostrate themselves before his feet; that became, ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... haymaking supper being the annual order of the household. The girl's small delicate head, with its coronal of wild roses, looked strange and incongruous among the rough specimens of manhood about her, and sometimes as the laughter became boisterous, or some bucolic witticism caught her ear, a faint flush coloured the paleness of her cheeks and a little nervous tremor ran through her frame. She drew as closely as she could to the old farmer, who sat rigidly upright and quiet, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... There is a hiatus in the Journals at the point of Monk's reception and speech in the House; but the speech was printed separately, and is given in the Parl. Hist. III. 1575-7. The original authority for Henry Marten's witticism is, I ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... so eagerly, laughed over by the very cadgers at their booths, conned by the women at the stairheads, lying on every counter, where Allan's new verses would be pulled to pieces by brother wits who had known him to do better, or heard a livelier witticism from his lips no farther gone than yestreen, must very soon have come to the notice of the westland lads at the college, and from them to the learned professors, and still more directly to the lively groups that went and came to the Parliament House. Already the wigmaker's shop had thriven ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... as I had kept repeating at home, that when the chosen time arrived for the British to strike, they would prove with deeds the shamelessness of this splash of printer's ink and confound, as they have on the Somme, the witticism of a celebrated Frenchman who has since made his apology for saying that the British would fight on till the last drop of French blood was shed. Besides, on the same day that I saw the poster I saw in a British ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... we are taking any other subject. He's a queer old duck; he goes about with his head in the clouds and blinks dazedly when occasionally he strikes solid earth. He tries to lighten his lectures with an occasional witticism—and we do our best to smile, but I assure you his jokes are no laughing matter. He spends his entire time between classes in trying to figure out whether matter really exists or whether ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... bill" before Parliament for generations. Ever and anon they take it up, look at it with their opera glasses, air their grandfather's old platitudes over it, give a sickly smile at some well-worn witticism, or drop a tear at a pathetic whine from some bishop, then lay the bill reverently back in its sacred pigeon-hole for a period ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... be allowed that amid such free conversation it was difficult for Joe to shine as an orator. But as he had no such ambition, perhaps the interruptions only served him. But Miss Thoroughbung's witticism did throw a certain damp over the wedding-breakfast. It was perhaps to have been expected that the lady should take her revenge for the injury done to her. It was the only revenge that she did take. She had been ill-used, she thought, and yet she ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... it is bourgeois—at any rate domestic. With its great number of situations and motives, presented in miniature, careful work is necessary to bring out the effect: and, above all, there is abundant room for study of manners, for proverbial and popular wisdom and witticism, for "furniture"—to use that word in a wide sense. Above all, the Italian mind, like the Greek, had an ethical twist—twist in more senses than one, some would say, but that does not matter. Manners, morals, motives—these three could not but displace, to ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... astounding result that in this tour of less than five months the Author-Reader netted altogether the enormous sum of $228,000. Supposing gold to have been then at par, that lump sum would have represented in our English currency what if spoken of even in a whisper would, according to Hood's famous witticism, have represented something like "the roar of a Forty Thousand Pounder!" Even as it was, then, gold being at 39 1/2 per cent, premium, with 1/4 per cent, more deducted on commission—virtually a drop of nearly 40 per cent, altogether!—the result was the winning of a fortune in ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... with his eyes, he told anecdotes, made epigrams, asked ridiculous riddles and answered them himself, talking the whole time in his extraordinary language, evolved in the course of prolonged practice in witticism and evidently now become a habit: "Badsome," "Hugeous," "Thank you most dumbly," and ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of abuse in England was enough to appall a very stout heart. John Wilson Croker was one of her most bitter assailants, and attempted to annihilate her in the Quarterly. She balanced matters by caricaturing him as "Counsellor Crawley" in her next novel, in a way that hit and hurt, and by a witticism which lives, while his envenomed sentences are forgotten. Some one was telling her that Croker was among the crowd who thought they could have managed the battle of Waterloo much better than Wellington, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... a diplomatic appointment: he afterwards attained to the rank of an ambassador, whose duty it is, according to a witticism of Sir Henry Wotton's 'to lie abroad for the good of his country;' and no man was in this respect more competent to fulfil these requirements than Chesterfield. Hating both wine and tobacco, he had smoked and drunk at Cambridge, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... receive me, were thrown into an awful flutter. They had never seen the like of Sing, and thought that I was introducing a wolf into the fold. I reassured them as to his dogginess, and the watchman, after studying his black tongue, ventured a witticism. He wanted to know if I fed ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... Coleridge?" the wretched man replied, with all the staring stupidity of his lamentable condition, "Sir! I am far from convinced that a Christian is permitted to read either newspapers, or any other works of merely political and temporary interest." This witticism quite enchanted his enlightened auditors, and they prolonged their festivities to an "early hour next morning." Having returned to London with a thousand subscribers on his list, the "Watchman" appeared in all his glory; but, alas! not on the day fixed ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... would have ended with a laugh in the street; but by resenting it, he gave it notoriety, caused it to be recorded, and has perpetuated the memory of the jest to all future times. He ought to have joined in the laugh, and rewarded Archy on the spot for so good a witticism. ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... comrades' success from the corner of a doorway; the timid ones whom one could not for an empire induce to pass through the gallery where their pictures were hung; the jokers who hid the bitter mortification of their defeat under an amusing witticism; the sincere ones who were absorbed in contemplation, trying to understand the various works, and already in fancy distributing the medals. And the painters' families were also there. One charming young woman was accompanied by a coquettishly bedecked child; a sour-looking, skinny matron ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... itself is propped on very in different columns," answered the smith, in a rude witticism on the affection of the pope for ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... you that-a-way?" asked Tom, derisively. "I bet if you had her alone she wouldn't be so hard to manage—would you, Rita?" Tom thought himself a rare wit, and a mistake of that sort makes one very disagreeable. Rita's face burned scarlet at Tom's witticism, and Mrs. Bays promptly ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... which periodically sends many hundreds of its tailors to seek employment in our metropolis. The German phrase is "Die saure Gurken Zeit," or pickled gherkin time. A misunderstanding of the meaning of the phrase may have given rise to the vulgar witticism, that tailors are vegetarians, who "live on cucumber" while at play, and on ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... after his seriousness of the night before. Life seemed to flash from him on all sides, occasionally in a keen stroke of wit, oftener in a humorous presentation of things. His brother alone could see how he would check the witticism on his very lips lest it should hurt. It was in virtue of his tenderness toward everything that had life that he was able to give such narratives of what he had seen, such descriptions of persons he had met. ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... takes the place of the aged guide and talks with his father, who does not recognize his voice, but regards him as a wandering madman. Gloucester avails himself of the opportunity to deliver himself of a witticism: "'Tis the times' plague when madmen lead the blind," and he insists on dismissing the old man, obviously not from motives which might be natural to Gloucester at that moment, but merely in order, when left alone with Edgar, to enact the later scene of the imaginary ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... deposited the freshly-filled tankards upon the tables, "why, what a 'urry to be sure! And is your gran'mother a-dyin' an' you wantin' to see the pore soul afore she'm gone! I never see'd such a mighty rushin'" A chorus of good-humoured laughter greeted this witticism, which gave the company there present food for many jokes, for some considerable time. Sally now seemed in less of a hurry to get back to her pots and pans. A young man with fair curly hair, and eager, bright blue eyes, was engaging most of her attention and the whole of ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... under 'banter'; from Sir Thomas Elyot under 'mansuetude'; from Lord Chesterfield under 'flirtation'; from Davies and Marlowe's Epigrams under 'gull'; from Roger North under 'sham' (Appendix); the third quotation from Dryden under 'mob'; one from the same under 'philanthropy', and again under 'witticism', in which he claims the authorship of the word; that from Evelyn under 'miss'; and from Milton under 'demagogue'. There are also notices of the same kind in Todd's Johnson. The work, however, is one which no single scholar could ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... and grow thin like a dime." He recognized the current witticism of the year as it issued stridently from one of the pairs at ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... jeoparded their lives for years on end rather than hurt one hair on a Native's head,—a cry of execration, loud and deep, and even savage, arose from the Press, and was apparently joined in by the Church itself. The common witticism about the "Gospel and Gunpowder" headed hundreds of bitter and scoffing articles in the journals; and, as we afterwards learned, the shocking news had been telegraphed to Britain and America, losing nothing in force by the way, and, while filling friends of Missions with dismay, ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... 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
... to change, and again at Knype and at Bursley, he produced astonishment in porters by concealing the effort with which he handed them the hat-box, as though its weight was ten ounces. And each time he made the same witticism about sovereigns. ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... a bridal couple walking up the aisle," exclaimed Billie. But Nancy was too frightened to withdraw her arm from Percy's even at this witticism. She leaned on him in an attitude of relief and ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... by the Beni Sukh'r, who plundered him of all his flocks and herds, horses, tents, and even most of his clothing,—then described the march of Ibrahim Pasha's army in their disastrous attempt upon Kerak: also some of the valiant achievements of his kinsman Gublan; and then proceeding to witticism, gave me his etymological origin of the name of Hhesban—namely, that, on the subsiding of the great deluge, the first object that Noah perceived was that castle, perched as it is upon a lofty peak; whereupon he exclaimed, Hhus'n ban—"a castle appears!" ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... and our Actor sparkles amazingly. Put to him an unprofessional question, and you strike him dumb; an abstract truth locks his jaws. On the contrary, listen to the stock-joke; lend an attentive ear to the witticism clubbed by the whole green-room—for there is rarely more than one at a time in circulation—and no man talks faster—none with a deeper delight to himself—none more profound, more knowing. The conversation of our Actor is a fine "piece of mosaic." Here Shakspeare ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... conjured his spirit into the camp with a witticism as to what he was doing, and a ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... a severe gaze at Elden. "You should keep your wits better in hand, young man. When you find them rambling it might be well to—ah—lasso them. Ha, ha, Mr. Conward. That's the word, is it not? Lasso them." This unexpected witticism on Mrs. Hardy's part had the fortunate effect of restoring that lady's good humour, and Elden found an easy way out of the situation by ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... been made for her on the occasion of the Chicago opening of Come On In. Everybody had been there and the Crawfords had given a supper dance for her at the Blackstone afterward. And driving in the last nail, she told of the feeble little witticism old Mrs. Crawford had made apropos of her return—a remark whose tinge of malice was so mild that it was felt by all to constitute an official ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the host and hostess. Soame Rivers at once nicknamed him 'The Dictator' 'Why "The Dictator"?' people asked. 'Because he has been kicked out—don't you see?' was the answer. But Soame Rivers did not give forth that witticism in the presence of Sir Rupert or ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... a man - This agonizing witticism! And nothing could be sweeter than My temper, till the Ghost began Some most ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... follows:— 'Dr. Goldsmith 'belonged to a Club of' Beaux Esprits, 'where Wit sparkled sometimes at the Expence of Good-nature. It was proposed to write Epitaphs on the Doctor; his Country, Dialect and Person, furnished Subjects of Witticism. — The Doctor was called on for' Retaliation, 'and at their next Meeting produced the following Poem, which I think adds one Leaf to his immortal Wreath.' This account seems to have sufficed for Evans, Percy, and the earlier editors. But in vol. i. p. 78 of his edition of Goldsmith's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... every qualification. Personable and of a good figure, a clever billiard-player, a passable amateur actor, he danced well, and excelled in most physical exercises; he could, moreover, sing a ballad and applaud a witticism. Supple, envious, never at a loss, there was nothing that he did not know—nothing that he really knew. He knew nothing, for instance, of music, but he could sit down to the piano and accompany, after a fashion, a woman who consented after much pressing to sing a ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... their departure. It is said that months before he had been fond of telling humorous stories, and had delighted in making the soldiers laugh. He certainly had a sense of humour, and now and then could not refrain from some witticism which set the highly strung lads in roars of laughter. But the close of his ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... Austen's sense of the comic ran away with her at times as Emma Woodhouse's did. I do not know of any similar instance of cruelty in conversation on the part of a likeable person so unpardonable as Emma Woodhouse's witticism at the expense of Miss Bates at the Box Hill picnic. Miss Austen makes Emma ashamed of her witticism, however, after Mr. Knightley has lectured her for it. She sets a limit to the rights of wit, again, in Pride and Prejudice, when Elizabeth defends her sharp tongue against Darcy. "The wisest ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... discipline had cured the family of Paris; the same year Fleeming was to write, in answer apparently to a question of Frank Scott's, "I could find no national game in France but revolutions"; and the witticism was justified in their experience. On the first possible day they applied for passports, and were advised to take the road to Geneva. It appears it was scarce safe to leave Paris for England. Charles Reade, with keen dramatic gusto, had just smuggled himself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... girl's face, and a sudden pang seized him, whether of friendly concern or of selfish annoyance, he would have been the last to inquire. That they should have passed him by, in his picturesque situation, without a word, thus cutting him off from the delivery of a witticism which he had concocted for their edification, was certainly a grievance, and as he rose to his feet, unregarded, and followed after, it is perhaps not to be wondered at, if the thought crossed his mind, that it might be worth while to cut ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... around me. I think I never laughed so much in my whole life together as I did at that dinner-table. Nearly opposite to me sat the red-haired merchant Wadel, with his long, dryly comical face, firing off one witticism after another, and at my side whispered the hump-backed clerk Gram, who was famed for his cleverness, and feared for his biting tongue. His sharp remarks upon the different people who sat at the table, ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... some music, to take her to ride in his new motor, which he ran himself, or to dine with her. Mrs. Conry was lonely. After Isabelle went to California for her health, she saw almost no one. The women she met at her engagements found her "not our kind," and Nan Lawton's witticism about "the ruins" and Vickers did not help matters. Vickers saw the situation and resented it. This loneliness and disappointment were bad for her. She worked at her music in a desultory fashion, dawdled over ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... for she apparently gave me little thought, and was unobtrusively attentive and devoted to him. He had the good taste to see that further personal remarks were not agreeable; and since his last attempted witticism fell flat, did not attempt any more. Our table-talk flagged, and we hastened through the meal. After it was over ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... kinsmen has brought, as apparently it alone could bring, the survivor to wedlock with his beloved. We suspect, then, that the attribution of the motive is equally modern with the style of the not ill-contrived witticism which accompanies ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Lawrence laughed jerkily at this witticism. She laughed again when John Turner rose from his chair to congratulate her, but the laugh suddenly ceased when he raised her hand to his lips with a courtesy which was even in those days dying out of the world, and turned away from him ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... about in the moonlight like a play-actor!" said Tozer, in consternation, drawing aside the curtain to look out. "I'll tell you what, old woman, the girl's in love; and that's what it is." He thought this was a capital joke, and followed his witticism with a laugh. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... said in Boston came naturally in 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 by Appleton's unobtrusive aid. He, like Longfellow, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... applause, was reinstated at once, and was made President of the next Democratic State Convention. There he was in his glory. His tact and good humor were infinite, and he held those hundreds of excitable and explosive men in the hollow of his hand. He would dismiss a dangerous motion with a witticism so apt that the mover himself would join in the laugh, and give it up. His broad face in repose was that of a Quaker, at other times that of a Bacchus. There was a religious streak in this jolly partisan, and he published several poems that breathed the sweetest ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... standing jest, standing joke, private joke, conceit, quip, quirk, crank, quiddity, concetto^, plaisanterie [Fr.], brilliant idea; merry thought, bright thought, happy thought; sally; flash of wit, flash of merriment; scintillation; mot [Fr.], mot pour rire [Fr.]; witticism, smart saying, bon-mot, jeu d'esprit [Fr.], epigram; jest book; dry joke, quodlibet, cream of the jest. word-play, jeu de mots [Fr.]; play of words, play upon words; pun, punning; double entente, double entendre &c (ambiguity) 520 [Fr.]; quibble, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... like some one rushing from a house with his clothes on fire, as she tore open the knot of the bridle reins and swung into the saddle. She did not need to hear the words to know that the guffaw which reached her from a group on the sidewalk was inspired by some coarse witticism concerning her. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... in his innocent childhood, whilst the Bishop was in petticoats, and almost before he had begun to curse and to swear plainly in French, an Irish vagabond had attempted to swindle him out of that famous witticism which has since been as good as a life-annuity to the venerable knave's literary fame.] sometimes, for instance in Hierocles, sometimes in Diogenes Lrtius, in Plutarch, or in Athenus. Now the thing you know claimed by so many people, could ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... morning. The sharp crack of the ball, as it bounded from side to side, was almost lost in the crisp laughter and babel of voices; which as I entered rose into a perfect uproar, Mademoiselle having just flung a whole lapful of roses across the court in return for some witticism. These falling short of the gallery had lighted on the head of the astonished Diego, causing a temporary cessation of play, during ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... 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 ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... explanations have been offered, but all of them leave the subject dark somewhere." And John laughed as he saw that the boys appreciated his little attempt at witticism. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,—in the ordinary meaning of the term,—which he takes to task, twisting ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... faithfully do so. So they grew up, and many was the grave lecture commenced by ma, to the effect that Sam was misleading and spoiling Henry. But the lectures were never concluded, for Sam would reply with a witticism, or dry, unexpected humor, that would drive the lecture clean out of my mother's mind, and change it to a laugh. Those were happier days. My mother was as lively as any girl of sixteen. She is not so now. And sister Pamela I have described in describing Henry; for she was ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and not until he had made several sales did he venture on a joke or a witticism, although he had a plentiful stock of cheap wit, such as ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... lively, and a general air of mirth and intelligence, 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 Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... left his bones behind advisedly, Phillips," said he to the young surgeon, who was smiling still at his own witticism, "because he knew, if he brought them, you would only carve and saw them about as you served those fossils ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... community with the vulgar is their jocularity; and we can hardly exhibit more strikingly the wide gulf which separates him from them, than by comparing the object which shakes the diaphragm of a coal-heaver with the highly complex pleasure derived from a real witticism. That any high order of wit is exceedingly complex, and demands a ripe and strong mental development, has one evidence in the fact that we do not find it in boys at all in proportion to their manifestation of other powers. Clever boys generally aspire ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... the time he was in the Sixth Form, and obtained maiks, ostensibly for a French exercise, with a composition called De Camelo qualis sit. He alone of created boys could joke in the rarefied air of the Head Master's schoolroom, and had power to "chase away the passing frown" with some audacious witticism for which an English boy would have been punished. Longbow was ploughed three times at Oxford, and once "sent down." But he is now the very orthodox vicar of a West End parish, a preacher of culture, and ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... of proprietorship, and there was no physical resemblance between the two. A mean devil, Bud called him mentally, with a narrow forehead, eyes set too far apart and the mouth of a brute. Someone spoke to the man, calling him Lew, and he answered with rough good humor, repeating a stale witticism and laughing at it just as though he had not heard others say it a ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... 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, vie, envy, clairvoyance. Perhaps the last six should be disregarded as too exceptional in ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... and make officers and canons. We must, perforce, 'monsieur' them, and salute them a league off as if they were their masters. The secretary even of the wife is very important. The secretary is more important than the mistress nowadays"; and the old officer laughed at his provincial witticism. ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... The witticism was greeted with a roar of laughter, and upon this expression of a somewhat verdant patriotism the dispute concerning the reduction ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... 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, ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... make your blooming little erraw,' Mr. Hayes burst in, adopting one of Lord Southminster's favourite witticisms—the sort of witticism that improves, like poetry, by frequent repetition. 'Policemen, you may go into the next room and wait: this is a family affair; we have no ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... compliment paid to him by his visitor, Enan, that he is "skilled and well-informed in the science of medicine." There is, too, a professional tone about many of the quips and gibes in which Zabara indulges concerning doctors. Here, for instance, is an early form of a witticism that has been attributed to many recent humorists. "A philosopher," says Zabara, "was sick unto death, and his doctor gave him up; yet the patient recovered. The convalescent was walking in the street when the doctor ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... these brilliant anecdotes never tell. And I think it would be very interesting to know what the victim of a witticism has ...
— Five O'Clock Tea - Farce • W. D. Howells
... forth. I might do all that—and be an egoist all the same. I venture to think that you don't find me a bore, and don't think me a bad fellow, but still you suppose that I—what's the saying?—would sacrifice friend or father for the sake of a witticism." ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... gringo is telling his friends adios while he may!" some one shouted loudly from across the arena; and a great laugh roared from the throats that were dark, and handclapping at the witticism made the ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... which supplies our continental neighbours with such abundant matter for wonderment and witticism, is of no very recent date. Now more than ever, perhaps, does this passion ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... and silently given, I often catch myself endeavouring to sport a bad pun, when I have got the ear of a fair damsel] The only effect which the witticism produced in the present instance, however, was an enormous groan, in which the fellows on the dickey participated. Even the postilion who stood near, set up a crowing laugh—and the very horses by their snorting and neighing, seemed to be sensible of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... other emotion awakened by this little incident, (and so, indeed, did the three old fellows after the first burst,) so perhaps there was as much keen enjoyment and relish in that laugh, altogether, as the politest assembly ever derived from the most poignant witticism uttered ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... by amiability and wit. "Usually," says Liszt, "he was lively, his caustic mind unearthed quickly the ridiculous far below the surface where it strikes all eyes." And again, "the playfulness of Chopin attacked only the superior keys of the mind, fond of witticism as he was, recoiling from vulgar joviality, gross laughter, common merriment, as from those animals more abject than venomous, the sight of which causes the most nauseous aversion to certain sensitive and delicate natures." Liszt calls Chopin "a fine ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... versed in history, both ancient and modern, in the biographies of most of the celebrated men of all ages, and was also well acquainted with the most eminent poets, from Chaucer to Tennyson, ever having an apt quotation at his command to fasten home a maxim or make more pungent a witticism. In fact he had further developed a mind naturally broad by making his own the best thoughts of the ages, and his sensitive nature could not, knowingly, have given pain to a worm—no one that was worthy appealed in vain to his generosity, and it seemed to be the endeavor of his life to gain ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... over the kitchen of the basement restaurant, long since migrated somewhere to the north. She had exacted her share of the homage and the substance of her clients. After her departure there was still the attempt to keep up the ancient fire of witticism, and "la la la la!" was still uttered in what was thought to be the best Parisian accent, and the judgments of magazine editors, and the achievements of the painters who sold their portraits, and the writers whose novels crept into the ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... said, as the Count disappeared. "He is unused to the artificial manners of a Court. In truth, I take it as a friendly act, for I am sure the valiant Count never turned his back upon a foe," which Imperial witticism was well received, for the sayings of an ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... heartiest laugh is at a detracting witticism. Hence the phrase 'devilish good' has sometimes ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... back, if anyone starts to have any fun with you," replied Lieutenant Ulwin. "Remember, a club is where all men stand on an equal footing. If an admiral gets after you, you will do well to swallow any witticism he may try on you. But with any officer below an admiral you don't ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... for the promised witticism, but discovering that he had finished, burst into a long and hearty roar, which the old gentleman accepted complacently as a ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... against the recent victories of Pompey, and to have provoked him to use his influence to get rid of the author. But this annotation of Cicero's poetry had not been Piso's only offence. He had been consul at the time of the exile, and had given vent, it may be remembered, to the witticism that the "saviour of Rome" might save the city a second time by his absence. Cicero was not the man to forget it. The beginning of his attack on Piso is lost, but there is quite enough remaining. Piso was of a swarthy complexion, approaching probably to ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... the twins here, so't the doctor's gal can see 'em. Weighed five pounds when they was born, and look at 'em now! Best fatted live stock on the farm, I say, Doctor." And Mr. Holcomb's great laugh at his own witticism filled the room. Catherine, meanwhile, with the sincerity of a girl who really loves all babies, admired the plump twins to such a degree that their father felt himself ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... if you wish," retorted the doctor, and the witticism was received with a yell, in the Doric mode. You see Rheinberger had not quite sapped the sense of humor of ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... the mouth of one of his characters, that, "if you wish to make an Englishman respect you, you must treat him with insolence." The language is somewhat too strong, and it would not be altogether safe to act upon the suggestion; but the witticism embodies a modicum of truth, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... Patrick's day, but not for St. Michael's," said Mr. Jinks, with a faint attempt at a witticism. ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... in this witticism lay one of the causes of the French Revolution may seem at first glance an outrageous overstatement. Yet it is certain that, but for that imprudent phrase, the need would never have arisen that sent Rohan across the Park of Versailles on that August night to ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... were simple; he rose early in the morning, took a long walk through the grounds of Chatsworth, and cultivated healthful recreation. The after part of the day was devoted to study and composition. Like Sir Walter Raleigh, he was a devoted admirer of the "fragrant herb." Charles II.'s constant witticism, styled Hobbes as "a bear against whom the Church played their young dogs, in order to ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... in which Wyatt received this harmless pleasantry convinced me, at once, that he was mad. At first he stared at me as if he found it impossible to comprehend the witticism of my remark; but as its point seemed slowly to make its way into his brain, his eyes, in the same proportion, seemed protruding from their sockets. Then he grew very red—then hideously pale—then, as if highly ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... brigades, divisions. They preside at court-martials. Beneath the shadow of their notorious incompetency all minor evils may lurk undetected. To crown all, they are, in many cases, sincere and well-meaning men, utterly obtuse as to their own deficiencies, and manifesting (to employ a witticism coeval with themselves) all the Christian virtues except ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... received the drawings of Grignan, and know not how to express my satisfaction and gratitude but by a silly witticism that is like the studied quaintness of the last age. In short, they are so much more beautiful than I expected, that I am not surprised at your having surprised me by exceeding even what I expected from your well-known kindness to me; they are charmingly executed, and with great taste. I own too ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... "joke proof," as they had never been known to see the point of any witticism, and if it chanced to be explained to them they would stare placidly at the speaker and then ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... proscription; which endeavored to reach every one who had maintained the smallest correspondence with Geta, who lamented his death, or who even mentioned his name. [26] Helvius Pertinax, son to the prince of that name, lost his life by an unseasonable witticism. [27] It was a sufficient crime of Thrasea Priscus to be descended from a family in which the love of liberty seemed an hereditary quality. [28] The particular causes of calumny and suspicion were at length exhausted; and when a senator was accused of being a secret enemy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... playhouses, the latest fashions in furbelows or commodes, and make love either lightly or with serious intent. One may be sure that at my Lady Dunstanwolde's many dishes of Bohea were drunk, and many ogling glances and much witticism exchanged. There was in these days even a greater following about her than ever. A triumphant beauty on the verge of becoming a great duchess is not like to be neglected by her acquaintance, and ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... fits of laughter, which vibrated like small thunder amid the high rocks surrounding them. 'Good line for a comedy, I think. Ha! ha!—gad, I'll make a note of it,' and diving into one of the pockets of his coat, he produced therefrom an old letter, on the back of which he inscribed the witticism with the ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... 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, he would still recur to it as an evidence of the felicity of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... other way. Even if readers enjoyed having paragraphs close in this cracking manner, it must be borne in mind that not all conclusions are capable of such a statement, and, what is worse, that the tendency to seek for epigrams leads to untruth and a degenerated form of witticism. Such forced sentences are only half truths, or they are a bit of cheap repartee. Such a close is effective, if the whole truth can be so expressed; but to seek for such sentences is dangerous. The best rule is the one already stated; it applies ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... see why we hear that the Englishman is deficient in a sense of humour. His jokes may not be a matter of daily food to him, as they are to the American; he may not love whimsicality with the same passion, nor inhale the aroma of a witticism with as keen a relish; but he likes fun whenever he sees it, and he sees it as often as most people. It may be that we find the Englishman more receptive to our bits of feminine nonsense just now, simply because this is the day of the American ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... secrets of life. It was a time of swift and pitiless change, of action rather than reflection, of the turning of many separate currents into one headlong stream. "We must, indeed, all hang together," runs Franklin's well-known witticism in Independence Hall, "or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Excellently spoken, Doctor! And that homely, cheery, daring sentence gives the keynote of much of the Revolutionary writing that has survived. It may be heard in the state papers of Samuel Adams, the oratory of Patrick ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... agreement, we know, was carried out, but whether it led to an exchange of companies, or what effect it had upon the players, we cannot say. Possibly to this period of joint management may be assigned the witticism of Dick Tarleton recorded as having been uttered "at the Curtain" where the Queen's Men were then playing.[100] It may even be that as one result of the affiliation of the two houses the Queen's Men were transferred ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... the merry witticism, as he answered, "There is light enough out here under the stars to think by. How ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... over this witticism, which was evidently one which he relied upon for the making of conversation. "How do you do, Captain?" he said, to a man who was passing. "Mr. Montague, let me introduce my friend ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... and Flemming continued to turn over the leaves of the sketch-book, with an occasional criticism and witticism. At length he came to a leaf which was written in pencil. People of a lively imagination are generally curious, and always so when a little ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... whose arrangement it was that Jesus was hung between the two thieves. It may have been done by order of Pilate, who wished in this way to add point to the witticism which he had put into the inscription above the cross; or the arrangement may have been due to the Jewish officials, who followed their Victim to Golgotha and may have persuaded the soldiers to give Him this place, as an additional insult; or the soldiers ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... Pulteney declared against dividing; observing, with a witticism, that "dividing was not the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... standing out leaning against the pig-pen, with Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin, of nudging and being nudged by them into frequent excess of laughter over some fondly rambling anecdote or confiding witticism, until Captain Pharo, "taking the sun," decided to put off until some other day going to the Point to get a nail put ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... fear you will regret your determination to make literature a profession; for your letters informed me that you are poor; and doubtless you remember the witticism concerning the 'republic of letters which contained not a sovereign.' Your friend, Mr. Murray, appreciated the obstacles you are destined to encounter, and I am afraid you will not find life in New York as agreeable as it ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Nijeradze! Don't clown!" he cried abruptly, growing pale, "I've restrained myself several times already at your fool pranks. I have until now held you as a man of conscience and feeling. One more inappropriate witticism, and I'll change my opinion of you; and know, that ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... and Boosey, and Timon Croesus come up and stand about so gentlemanly, and say, "Well Mrs. Potiphar, are we to have no more charming parties this season?"—and Boosey says, in his droll way, "Let's keep the ball a-rolling!" That young man is always ready with a witticism. Then I step out and James throws open the door, and the young men raise their hats, and the new crowd says, "I wonder who that is!" and the plush and purple, and calves spring up behind, and ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... station, next Heathfield on the way to Hailsham, we can walk across the country to East Hoathly, and thence to Chiddingly and Hellingly, where we come to the railway again. ("East Hoathly, Chiddingly and Hellingly," says a local witticism: "three lies and all true.") East Hoathly stands high in not very interesting country, nor is it now a very interesting village. But it is remarkable for an admirably conducted inn and a church unique (in my ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas |
