William Shakespeare A melancholy looking man
Playwright, Poet (c. 1564–1616)
"I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else." ― G.K. ChestertonQuotation is a serviceable substitute for wit." ― Oscar Wilde
"A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle." ― P.G. Wodehouse, The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd: And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or natures changing course untrimm'd; By thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee. ― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
—William Shakespeare
He who kneels the most, stands the best." ― D.L. Moody
Wit
There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words." [Interview, The Paris Review, Summer 1956]" ― Dorothy Parker
"What's done cannot be undone."
—William Shakespeare
"No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. We have many organizers, but few agonizers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few clingers; lots of pastors, few wrestlers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors; many writers, but few fighters. Failing here, we fail everywhere." ― Leonard Ravenhill
"A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally." ― Oscar Wilde
"And here's something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy Will Be Done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and He's going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It's all very confusing." ― George Carlin
"Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit."
― Oscar Wilde"It's common platitude that knowledge is neutral but every now and then it would be useful if it was on your side and not theirs." ― John Brunner, The Jagged Orbit
"Now, I can understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision, should have appeared ludicrous. Then, so great was my rage against the mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where they stood." : ― Fitz-James O'Brien
"Reason leavened with a little wit (if possible) is the real alternative to hate speech, meaning that there's no better time for it." ― Walter Kirn
"You are...the embodiment of immediate good karma. The equalizer between bottom feeders and the sanctimonious cogs in the system." ― G.A.P. Gutierrez, No Return Address: A collection of poems
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
—William Shakespeare
Ludicrosity
"Now, I can understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision, should have appeared ludicrous. Then, so great was my rage against the mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where they stood." ― Fitz-James O'Brien"And then, on the final day, it was time for the faux Underground Railroad. This is the part that no one believes. "No adult would ever do that," they say. "You can't be remembering that right." I am, in fact, remembering it perfectly. The counselors "shackled" us together with jump ropes so we were "like slave families" and then released us into the woods. We were given a map with a route to "freedom" in "the North", which must have been only three or four hundred feet but felt like much more. Then a counselor on horseback followed ten minutes later, acting as a bounty hunter. Hearing hooves, I crouched being a rock with Jason Baujelais and Sari Brooker, begging them to be quiet so we weren't caught and "whipped." I was too young, self-involved, and dissociated to wonder what kind of impact this had on my black classmates. All I knew was that I was miserable. We heard the sound of hooves growing closer and Max Kitnick's light asthma wheezes from beind an oak tree. "Shut up," Jason hissed, and I knew we were cooked. When the counselor appeared, Sari started to cry." ― Lena Dunham, Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"
Epistolary
"As no two persons see the same thing with the same eyes, my view of hospital life must be taken through my glass, and held for what it is worth. Certainly, nothing was set down in malice, and to the serious-minded party who objected to a tone of levity in some portions of the Sketches, I can only say that it is a part of my religion to look well after the cheerfulnesses of life, and let the dismals shift for themselves; believing, with good Sir Thomas More, that it is wise to "be merrie in God." ― Louisa May Alcott, Hospital Sketches"The poet must sing, and the sculptor think in bronze, and the painter make the world a mirror for his moods, as surely and as certainly as the hawthorn must blossom in spring, and the corn turn to gold at the harvest-time, and the moon in her ordered wanderings change from shield to sickle, and from sickle to shield." ― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis