Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

You can pretend to be serious; but you can't pretend to be witty.

You have to be highly intelligent to get away with a dumb joke. That takes a pretty smart fella.

Wit is educated insolence.

Ridicule is also a weapon against forces of evil. Really clever, intelligent ridicule.

As is so often the case with pieces that appear in the 'Onion,' I honestly could not decide whether this was a clever hoax or not - the arguments were almost exactly as stupid as the real thing.

I've got the brain of a four year old. I'll bet he was glad to be rid of it.

Puns are the droppings of soaring wits.

There's no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature.

I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.

One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.

Comedy is only as stupid as you are smart.

I love smart comedy.

Irreverence is easy - what's hard is wit.

My only agenda is trying to make you laugh and say something smart.

I love comedy. I love the absurdity of it. I love the kind of intelligence that's required to be dumb in comedy.

Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet.

I have always been very fond of them (drama critics) . . . I think it is so frightfully clever of them to go night after night to the theatre and know so little about it.

Wit, to be well defined, must be defined by wit itself; then it will be worth listening to.

I am in full possession of the amazing power of being sarcastic.

The more you know, the more you can make fun of

Calvin: I'm a genius. I can't believe how smart I am. ...I've got more brains than I know what to do with. Hobbes: So I've noticed.

Truth, when witty, is the wittiest of all things.

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. ALGERNON: We have. JACK: I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about? ALGERNON: The fools? Oh! about the clever people of course. JACK: What fools.

After wisdom comes wit.

True wit has a grave intention.