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Witty Quotes

1,492QUOTES

Witty quotes: the sharpest one liners from Wilde, Twain, Churchill, Parker and the comedians, each checked to its source.

New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large.

John Milton

It is better to entertain an idea than to take it home to live with you for the rest of your life.

Randall Jarrell

Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you. Give me a pig. He just looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal.

Attributed to Winston Churchill · A saying Churchill's family and staff recalled; no record of the day he said it.

The geese who laid the golden eggs and never cackled.

Winston Churchill · The source reads: “They were the geese who laid the golden eggs and never cackled.” · S, Said on many occasions, 1940

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.

Franklin P. Adams

Madness is however an affliction which in war carries with it the advantage of surprise.

Winston Churchill · The Second World War, vol. I, The Gathering Storm (1948)

This historian with his captivating style and devastating self-confidence was the prince of literary rogues, who always preferred the tale to the truth.

Winston Churchill · On Macaulay

You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

Will Rogers

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

G. K. Chesterton

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.

F. H. Bradley

I am the victim of caprice, and travel on the wings of fancy.

Winston Churchill · Cairo, 10 December 1943

Your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.

Samuel Johnson

To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

William Shakespeare · Hamlet to Polonius.

Humour is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity.

James Thurber

If the law supposes that, the law is a ass, a idiot.

Charles Dickens · The source reads: “'If the law supposes that,' said Mr Bumble ... 'the law is a ass—a idiot.'” · Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist.

Martial law is no law at all. Martial law is brute force.

Winston Churchill · House of Commons, 2 April 1906

Your borrowers of books—those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.

Charles Lamb

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

Bertrand Russell

I must, however, admit that convictions of duty were supported by a strong sense of curiosity which perhaps it would have been well to keep in check.

Winston Churchill · Article “The Battle of Sidney Street”, Nash’s Pall Mall, February 1924

When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both it's health.

J. P. Donleavy

Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.

Attributed to Winston Churchill · The reply to Lady Astor's "If I were your wife, I'd put poison in your coffee"; the exchange was told before Churchill's day and pinned on him later.

The intervention which I make is without precedent, and the reason for that intervention is also without precedent, and the fact that the reason for my intervention is without precedent is the reason why I must ask for a precedent for my intervention.

Winston Churchill · House of Commons, 19 November 1941

History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other.

Philip Guedalla

So much they talked, so very little said.

Charles Churchill

Frequently asked questions

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1,492 quotes, dealt in a fresh order every day, so the page reads differently each morning, and every quote keeps its own page.

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Every quote on GKBook is traced to the book, speech, letter or interview it came from before it is published. A famous line that cannot be traced is kept because people search for it, but it is labelled "Attributed to", and a line that belongs to someone else is labelled "Often credited to" with the real origin beside it.

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