This continuation page contains additional source-backed quotations not shown in the initial 50-quotation overview. Return to the topic guide and browse collection.
“True wit is nature to advantage dress’d; what oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.”
Strong expression often succeeds not by inventing an alien idea but by giving memorable form to something many people already sensed.
Part II of An Essay on Criticism; Pope defines wit through clear expression of recognizable truth.
“Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?”
The rhetorical question mocks disproportionate retaliation by comparing an elaborate punishment with the crushing of something slight and fragile.
An Epistle from Mr. Pope to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735 first-edition scan), printed page 15 / scan leaf 21, line 297. “Who breaks a Butterfly upon a Wheel?” occurs inside the hostile “Paris” / Lord Hervey satire and questions disproportionate punishment. The first edition capitalizes “Butterfly” and “Wheel”; the frozen catalog capitalization is normalized, and the personal/polemical context remains explicit.
“I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still.”
The satirical speaker portrays restraint as refusing to escalate a literary attack, answering hostility with a comic wish that the critic’s need might be relieved.
An Epistle from Mr. Pope to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735 first-edition scan), printed page 8 / scan leaf 14, around lines 148–150. After saying Gildon drew his “venal quill,” Pope says he wished him a dinner and did not answer the attack. The first edition reads “sate still,” while the later/normalized Gutenberg #9800 witness underlying the frozen catalog reads “sat still”; this collection wording is retained and the witness variation is disclosed rather than silently rewritten.
“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,”
The line describes a subtle form of hostility in which apparent approval is calibrated to diminish rather than support its target.
An Epistle from Mr. Pope to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735 first-edition scan), printed page 11 / scan leaf 17, lines 199–212. “Damn with faint praise” belongs to Pope’s satirical portrait of “Atticus,” conventionally associated with Joseph Addison. It is polemical literary characterization inside Pope’s self-defence, not neutral biography or a general diagnosis of insincere praise.
“At ev'ry word a reputation dies.”
Pope compresses the destructive speed of fashionable gossip into a comic line about reputations being damaged in ordinary conversation.
The Rape of the Lock, Canto III, line 16 in the 1714 second edition. ‘At ev’ry Word a Reputation dies’ is already present in that edition and remains dated 1714; the line occurs in a satirical description of fashionable social talk rather than as literal reportage.
“What mighty contests rise from trivial things,”
The mock-heroic opening announces the poem’s central comic method: treating a small social quarrel with the scale and language of epic conflict.
The Rape of the Lock, Canto I, line 2 in the 1717 recension. The retained catalog wording ‘What mighty contests rise from trivial things’ is verified in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), scan page 157; the 1714 second edition instead reads ‘What mighty Quarrels rise from trivial things,’ so the synchronized source year is 1717. The line is part of Pope’s mock-heroic invocation and should be read as satire.
“Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.”
Bierce’s satirical definition suggests that learning may deepen understanding in reflective people while giving the unreflective additional ways to conceal ignorance.
The Devil’s Dictionary, entry “Education,” Project Gutenberg #972. This is a deliberately cynical comic dictionary definition and should be read as satire rather than as a literal educational theory.
“There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.”
Madeline Stanhope turns the convention of romantic closure into a cynical joke, separating the tidy endings of novels from the complications of lived relationships.
Barchester Towers, Chapter XXVII, ‘A Love Scene,’ Project Gutenberg #2432. Madeline Stanhope tells Mr Slope that there is no happiness in love except at the end of an English novel after a comic catalogue of tragic lovers. The sentence is witty fictional dialogue inside Trollope's satire, not a factual rule about love or happiness.
“What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?”
Mr Harding’s delight in a sofa, books and coffee turns an ordinary London room into temporary luxury through comfort, leisure and changed perspective.
The Warden, Project Gutenberg #619. The narrator describes Mr Harding settling into Tom Towers’s comfortable rooms after an exhausting day; this is comic fictional narration, not a claim about universal happiness.
“Good morning to the day; and next, my gold: Open the shrine, that I may see my Saint.”
Volpone’s opening worship of his hoarded gold immediately turns wealth into an object of devotion, establishing the comedy’s satire of avarice.
Volpone, Act I, Scene 1, Project Gutenberg #4039. Volpone opens the comedy by greeting his gold as a saint while Mosca reveals the hoard; the religious imagery establishes his avarice. It is fictional dramatic speech, not Ben Jonson autobiography, financial advice or a literal religious claim.
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
The joke exaggerates how difficult secrecy becomes once information is shared, making discretion the safest form of confidentiality.
Poor Richard’s Almanack; one of Franklin’s compact maxims about secrecy and human behavior.
“He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.”
The proverb uses a comic physical image to make a serious point: companions and environments often leave consequences behind.
Poor Richard’s Almanack; Franklin uses the image as a warning about association and consequences.
“He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.”
The joke distinguishes healthy self-respect from vanity by showing how self-adoration can become a closed competition with everyone else.
Poor Richard’s Almanack.
“Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.”
The maxim pairs careful choice before commitment with tolerance afterward, compressing a practical relationship philosophy into a comic contrast.
Poor Richard’s Almanack; a marital maxim later repeated in discussions of Franklin’s proverbial advice.
“A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.”
Franklin’s image jokes that a dispute can leave the person in the middle consumed by the professionals surrounding it.
Poor Richard’s Almanack; one of Franklin’s compact comparisons about disputes and practical judgment.
“The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”
Pascal humorously links brevity with revision time: concise expression can require more deliberate work than writing at length under pressure.
The Provincial Letters, Letter XVI, dated December 4, 1656, Project Gutenberg #73959. Pascal apologizes for the unusual length and rapid succession of his letters, saying the present one is long because he had no leisure to make it shorter. The sentence belongs to translated seventeenth-century religious polemic and is a witty observation about composition, not a measured productivity law.
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.”
Dickens treats good humor as socially contagious, capable of spreading through a room much like a mood.
Stave Three; excerpted from a longer sentence.
“It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most astonishing.”
Nesbit’s narrator humorously observes how quickly the children normalize the impossible once a magical creature becomes part of their ordinary conversation.
Five Children and It, Chapter I, “Beautiful as the Day,” Project Gutenberg #17314. The narrator observes how quickly the children become accustomed to the astonishing after they begin conversing with the Psammead. This is playful children’s-fantasy narration rather than an empirical psychological claim about adaptation.
“Of making many books there is no end.”
The ancient observation sounds surprisingly modern: written material can multiply without limit, so discernment matters as much as sheer volume.
Ecclesiastes 12:12 in the King James Version; excerpt from the verse’s warning about endless book-making and study.
“Reason always means what someone else has got to say.”
Martha jokingly dismisses “reason” when it threatens her determination to stay loyal to Miss Matty, revealing how people can rename disagreement as irrationality when affection fixes their decision.
Cranford, Project Gutenberg #394. Martha says the line during a comic but affectionate refusal to leave Miss Matty after financial trouble; it is character dialogue, not Gaskell’s definition of reason.
“Twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.”
The absurd equation represents the human impulse to resist perfect rational calculation simply to preserve a sense of independent choice.
Notes from Underground, Part I, Chapter IX, Constance Garnett translation. The “twice two makes five” line immediately follows the narrator’s complaint about mathematical certainty. Verified against Project Gutenberg #600 and the 1918 Heinemann White Nights and Other Stories Wikisource text.
“ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.”
The narrator uses irony to show how not knowing enough can make almost anything seem plausible, widening speculation rather than understanding.
Daniel Deronda; narrator’s ironic observation while Gwendolen speculates about Grandcourt, represented from Project Gutenberg #7469.
“What’s the good of a home, if you are never in it?”
Pooter turns his preference for staying home into a miniature philosophy, funny because the diary repeatedly treats ordinary domestic habits as matters of high principle.
The Diary of a Nobody, Chapter I, before the dated diary entries; Project Gutenberg #1026. After describing The Laurels and its back garden, Charles Pooter says “What’s the good of a home, if you are never in it?” and makes “Home, Sweet Home” his motto. The sentence belongs to Pooter’s domestic self-characterization inside diary fiction rather than a general lifestyle rule from the Grossmith brothers.
“Must get the scraper removed, or else I shall get into a scrape. I don’t often make jokes.”
The deliberately weak pun is followed by Pooter’s proud announcement that he rarely jokes, making his satisfaction with the line more comic than the wordplay itself.
The Diary of a Nobody, Chapter I, April 4 entry; Project Gutenberg #1026. After Cummings trips over the scraper while leaving, Charles Pooter writes “Must get the scraper removed, or else I shall get into a scrape. I don’t often make jokes.” The deliberately weak pun and Pooter’s pride in it are part of the novel’s characterization and comic timing.
“When he had gone, I thought of a splendid answer I ought to have given him. However, I will keep it for another occasion.”
Pooter’s perfect comeback arrives only after the argument has ended, a familiar social failure made comic by his confidence that the delayed answer can simply be saved for later.
The Diary of a Nobody, Chapter I, April 6 entry; Project Gutenberg #1026. Immediately after Borset leaves, Charles Pooter thinks of the “splendid answer” he should have given and decides to save it for another occasion. This is the same continuous comic exchange as the preceding Borset record and illustrates Pooter’s delayed wit rather than generic communication advice.
“The world is a perpetual caricature of itself.”
Social appearances repeatedly exaggerate or contradict reality, making ordinary life look like an ongoing parody of its own pretensions.
Soliloquies in England, “Dickens”; Santayana uses caricature to describe the gap between living reality and conventional masks.
“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”
The playful inventory balances time alone with companionship and community while keeping material needs deliberately small.
Walden, chapter “Visitors”; Thoreau uses the three-chair inventory to distinguish solitude, friendship, and larger social company.
“I am not young enough to know everything.”
Barrie reverses the cliché that age brings complete wisdom, making youthful certainty—not age—the comic claim to omniscience.
The Admirable Crichton, Act I, Project Gutenberg #3490. Ernest Woolley repeatedly delivers “I am not young enough to know everything” as a self-consciously clever epigram while Agatha, Treherne and the others struggle to understand it; Crichton later says he has no idea what Ernest meant. It remains fictional comic dialogue rather than J. M. Barrie autobiography or a factual claim about age and knowledge.
“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”
Austen’s ironic narration shows how confidence and a favorable opinion of someone can make observers excuse behavior they would otherwise call foolish.
Emma, Volume II, Chapter VIII, scan-backed 1816 John Murray first edition on Wikisource. After Frank Churchill returns from an impulsive haircut, Emma “moralised to herself” that silly things can cease to seem silly when sensible people do them impudently. This is Emma Woodhouse’s ironic private judgment inside the novel, not Austen endorsing impudence as a general rule.
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”
The line is memorable as praise of reading, though its comic context matters because Miss Bingley says it while performing interest for Darcy.
Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 11; context is ironic.
“I am not a great reader, and have pleasure in many things.”
Elizabeth lightly rejects the performance of bookish superiority, keeping reading in proportion to a broader and more independent personality.
Pride and Prejudice; Elizabeth answers a conversation in which reading is being used as a social signal.
“I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends.”
Mr. Bennet turns Mrs. Bennet’s recurring complaint into dry affection, using understatement to expose a long-established family pattern.
Pride and Prejudice, Volume 1, Chapter 1; Mr. Bennet responds to his wife’s complaint about her nerves.
“Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it.”
Romantic love is compared to an unavoidable childhood illness, making intense emotion comic by treating it as something people catch, endure, and eventually recover from.
The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being in Love”; the comparison opens the essay’s mock-medical treatment of romance.
“Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished.”
The narrator uses mortality to excuse not listing his countless imagined diseases, turning a serious phrase about short life into an absurdly practical time-saving joke.
Three Men in a Boat, Chapter I; spoken by the narrator to his doctor before he explains the one ailment he believes he does not have.
“Montmorency’s ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at.”
The narrator gives the dog a mock life-purpose centered on obstruction and provoking people, turning ordinary pet mischief into a grand statement of ambition.
Three Men in a Boat, packing episode; the narrator describes Montmorency repeatedly inserting himself into whatever the men are trying to pack.
“I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma.”
The narrator exaggerates imagined illness into an entire teaching hospital, using absurd scale to expose how thoroughly he has mistaken reading symptoms for medical diagnosis.
Three Men in a Boat, Chapter I; the narrator imagines medical students using his supposedly comprehensive collection of illnesses for training.
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own;”
Swift jokes that readers readily recognize other people in satire while overlooking themselves, making self-exemption part of the very behavior satire exposes.
The Battle of the Books, 'The Preface of the Author,' represented by Project Gutenberg #623. Swift's 'satire is a sort of glass' image opens the Preface and explains why readers recognize other people's faults more readily than their own. The retained semicolon marks a frozen excerpt from a longer sentence; this is satirical/literary metaphor rather than a psychological measurement rule.
“Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old.”
Swift compresses a familiar contradiction into satire: people may desire a long life while resisting the aging that necessarily accompanies it.
Thoughts on Various Subjects, c. 1713, Wikisource transcription. The aphorism is a satirical paradox about longevity and aging, not advice to fear or devalue old age.
“They come weeping and go weeping—you only come laughing and go laughing.”
The grave-digger’s observation uses dark humor to contrast conventional responses to death with a narrator who approaches the cemetery from another perspective.
The Madman, “The Grave-Digger”; the line is spoken by the grave-digger to the narrator.
“Imagination and a fixed idea will do a great deal, and we were sure we knew the direction a dragon would naturally take.”
Grahame humorously shows childhood imagination turning ambiguous tracks into convincing evidence, illustrating how expectation can organize perception before the facts are settled.
Dream Days, “The Reluctant Dragon,” Project Gutenberg #270. The child narrator and Charlotte are following uncertain tracks in snow and imagining a dragon; the sentence is playful literary narration about imagination and fixed expectations.
“We’re all mad here.”
The Cheshire Cat turns abnormality into a shared condition, humorously questioning who gets to define what counts as normal.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 6.
“Curiouser and curiouser!”
The playful exclamation captures the feeling of encountering a world that keeps becoming stranger than the rules used to explain it.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 2.
“Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”
The Queen’s order makes judicial procedure absurd by reversing its basic sequence, turning arbitrary authority into unmistakable nonsense.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 12; the Queen interrupts the trial with the reversed command.
“Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
The riddle is memorable because it originally arrives without a practical answer, making nonsense itself part of the social game at the tea party.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 7; the Mad Hatter asks Alice the famous riddle at the tea party.
“What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?”
Alice judges a book by the kinds of things that keep a child engaged, making the line both playful and a useful reminder that reading is experiential.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 1; Alice thinks about the book her sister is reading before the White Rabbit appears.
“Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
The comic instruction reduces a complicated task to sequence: start, continue, and recognize when the work is complete.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 12.
“Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday—but never jam today.”
The rule is comic because its promise is permanently deferred: reward exists on every day except the one a person is actually living.
Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter V, “Wool and Water,” printed page 94 / scan leaf 114 in the fully validated 1872 Macmillan first-edition witness on Wikisource. The White Queen explains the impossible rule “jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day,” a linguistic joke about living backwards and “every other day.” It remains fictional nonsense logic rather than practical advice about delayed rewards.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
The absurd boast celebrates imaginative flexibility and the ability to entertain possibilities before demanding immediate proof.
Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter V, “Wool and Water,” printed page 100 / scan leaf 120 in the fully validated 1872 Macmillan first-edition witness on Wikisource. The White Queen tells Alice that with enough practice she sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. This collection retains its 1871 source-year convention while the evidence witness is title-dated 1872; this remains fictional nonsense-logic rather than Lewis Carroll’s literal theory of belief or instruction to accept impossible claims.
“And, after all, what is a lie? ’T is but The truth in masquerade;”
Byron’s narrator jokingly blurs truth and falsehood as part of a satirical attack on how historians, politicians and storytellers shape facts through presentation.
Don Juan, Canto XI, stanza XXXVII, represented by the Wikisource canto transcription. “And, after all, what is a lie?” begins Byron’s comic narrator’s satire about historians, heroes, lawyers, poetry and prophecy mixing fact with presentation. It is deliberately ironic poetic narration, not a serious universal definition of lying.
“Tell the truth or trump—but get the trick.”
The joke turns moral advice into card-table strategy, making the line funny precisely because truth and tactical winning are compressed into one impossible-sounding rule.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter I epigraph; one of the fictional Calendar maxims Twain places before the chapter.
“When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.”
The line begins like conventional restraint advice and then breaks its own moral posture, using escalation to turn a familiar self-control formula into a comic admission about anger.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter X epigraph; a Calendar maxim placed directly after the mortality joke.
“As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.”
The mock rule is comic in its bluntness but also functions as concise writing advice: unnecessary modifiers can weaken direct expression when the writer is unsure they earn their place.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter XI epigraph; the sentence follows the three-part author compliment in the Calendar sequence.
“Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.”
The aphorism mocks reformers who find other people’s behavior easier to correct than their own, using a compact reversal to expose self-exemption and misplaced certainty.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter XV epigraph; a Calendar maxim immediately before the eggs-in-one-basket passage.
“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”
The epigram satirizes the irritation produced when another person’s good conduct silently exposes our own shortcomings, making moral example feel inconvenient rather than inspiring.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter XIX epigraph; one of the Calendar maxims before the chapter.
“Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
The undertaker supplies the comic reversal, but the underlying standard is serious: live with enough decency and human value that even someone professionally accustomed to death would feel the loss.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter VI epigraph; a Calendar maxim preceding the chapter.
“Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.”
Twain uses dark comedy to overturn conventional emotional assumptions, forcing the reader to notice that birth begins the difficulties of life while death ends them for the person concerned.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter IX epigraph; a darkly comic Calendar maxim about birth and death.
“When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.”
The joke turns the conventional promise of a better afterlife into self-interested moral calculation: the speaker suddenly worries about spending eternity with people he already disliked.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph preceding the October speculation maxim.
“The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.”
The sentence builds friendship into something almost sacred and then punctures the ideal with a borrowing joke, satirizing how financial pressure tests supposedly unconditional loyalty.
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph before the section following Chapter VII; the lending-money qualification supplies the punch line.
“The surest way to stop writing about Rome is to stop.”
The deliberately obvious sentence mocks the difficulty of ending an overfull account when a subject offers more material than the writer can organize.
The Innocents Abroad (1869), Chapter XXVIII. Near the close of the long Rome discussion Twain says that the surest way to stop writing about Rome is to stop, immediately before abandoning his attempted guide-book chapter. Verified against the scan-backed 1869 first edition.
“You and I are but sewing-machines.”
The comic comparison reduces human pride by placing ordinary people beside the much richer creative machinery Twain has just attributed to Shakespeare.
What Is Man?, Part I, “a. Man the Machine. b. Personal Merit,” Project Gutenberg #70. The Old Man says “You and I are but sewing-machines” immediately after contrasting Shakespeare with a Gobelin loom and before insisting that people merely turn out what their inherited and external influences permit. This remains Twain’s comic-philosophical deterministic dialogue, not settled psychology or neuroscience.
“Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.”
O. Henry turns Della’s financial distress into a comic-sad observation that ordinary life often mixes sorrow, small complaints and happiness rather than arriving in a single emotional register.
The Gift of the Magi, Project Gutenberg #7256. The narrator offers the line just after Della counts her $1.87 and cries on the couch before Christmas; it is humorous literary narration within a story of poverty, love and gift-giving.
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
The line playfully treats self-acceptance not as a one-time achievement but as a relationship that lasts throughout life.
An Ideal Husband, Act III; Lord Goring tells Phipps that “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance” immediately after saying that the only possible society is oneself. Verified against the public-domain Wikisource Act III transcription and Project Gutenberg #885. This remains comic fictional dialogue in Wilde’s social comedy rather than a psychological finding.
“To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.”
The paradox mocks social performance: even “being natural” can become a carefully maintained pose when people are conscious of appearances.
An Ideal Husband, Act I; Mrs. Cheveley—not Lord Goring—answers Sir Robert Chiltern’s question “You prefer to be natural?” with “Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up.” Verified against the public-domain Wikisource Act I transcription and Project Gutenberg #885.
“I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.”
The line makes conversation comic by combining cheerful self-deprecation with a claim of expertise in precisely nothing.
An Ideal Husband, Act I; Lord Goring answers his father, Lord Caversham, “I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only thing I know anything about.” Verified against the public-domain Wikisource Act I transcription and Project Gutenberg #885; this is comic fictional dialogue in their exchange about London society.
“I can resist everything except temptation.”
The paradox makes weakness sound like strength and exposes how easily people invent exceptions to their own principles.
Lady Windermere’s Fan.
“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.”
The epigram turns a flattering word into a comic rebrand for error, suggesting that experience often arrives only after something has gone wrong.
Lady Windermere’s Fan; a characteristic Wildean epigram linking experience and mistakes.
“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”
Wilde uses deliberate contradiction to suggest that solemnity is not the only way to take life seriously.
Lady Windermere’s Fan.
“The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything.”
The epigram compresses three stereotypes of certainty into one balanced joke, mocking credulity, suspicion, and youthful overconfidence at once.
“Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young,” first published in The Chameleon in 1894.
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
Wilde resists neat moral simplification by reminding the reader that truth often arrives mixed with context and contradiction.
The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I; Algernon Moncrieff. Exact catalog wording is preserved in the scan-backed Samuel French acting text on Wikisource, scan leaf 14 / printed page 12. The acting-text witness is abridged elsewhere, so this record is bound only to its independently verified page.
“I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays.”
The complaint is funny because it treats cleverness—normally a compliment—as an exhausting social excess that has become unfashionably common.
The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I; Jack Worthing. Exact catalog wording is preserved in the scan-backed Samuel French acting text on Wikisource, scan leaf 26 / printed page 24.
“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.”
Miss Prism reduces fiction to a deliberately simplistic moral formula, and the neat certainty is precisely what makes the line comic.
The Importance of Being Earnest, Act II; Miss Prism. Project Gutenberg #844 preserves the exact line in the complete Act II text. The Samuel French acting-text witness represented elsewhere on this source hub omits this Cecily / Miss Prism happy-ending exchange, so this record deliberately uses the complete-text witness rather than a guessed scan page.
“To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune—to lose both seems like carelessness.”
Lady Bracknell’s absurdly bureaucratic response turns tragedy into a social failing, which is funny because her concern for status overwhelms ordinary sympathy.
The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I; Lady Bracknell. Exact catalog wording is preserved in the scan-backed Samuel French acting text on Wikisource, scan leaf 24 / printed page 22, during her interrogation of Jack Worthing about his parentage.
“I hope it did not end happily? I don’t like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.”
Cecily reverses the conventional preference for happy endings, turning literary taste into a compact joke about boredom and expectation.
The Importance of Being Earnest, Act II; Cecily Cardew. Project Gutenberg #844 preserves the exact line in the complete Act II text. The Samuel French acting-text witness represented elsewhere on this source hub omits this Cecily / Miss Prism happy-ending exchange, so this record deliberately uses the complete-text witness rather than a guessed scan page.
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
The distinction between price and value criticizes a way of thinking that can measure cost while missing significance.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890 Lippincott magazine text, Chapter 3; Lord Henry gives the price-and-value epigram after describing a bargain for old brocade.
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
The joke exposes the appetite for attention by suggesting that even negative notice can seem preferable to complete social invisibility.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890 Lippincott magazine text, Chapter 1; Lord Henry gives the reputation paradox while discussing Basil Hallward’s portrait.
“All art is quite useless.”
The deliberately shocking ending to the preface argues for art’s independence from practical utility, forcing the reader to ask what aesthetic value means.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Preface; the final aphorism of Wilde’s aesthetic manifesto.
“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.”
Wilde shifts judgment away from a book’s supposed moral category and toward artistic execution, a deliberately provocative defense of aesthetic criticism.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Preface; one of Wilde’s epigrams about art and books.
“Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
The clipped conclusion makes Wilde’s aesthetic argument memorable by reducing a complicated moral debate to the quality of the writing itself.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Preface; immediately follows the statement rejecting moral and immoral categories for books.
“The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.”
Reginald turns youth and old age into a comic contrast between unrealized hopes and memories reshaped by hindsight.
Reginald, represented by Project Gutenberg #2830. Reginald says this during a social conversation; it is satirical fictional dialogue from Saki’s recurring character, not a measured claim about age or memory.
“Romance at short notice was her speciality.”
The closing sentence reveals Vera’s instant invention of another plausible story, turning the tale’s deception into a compact joke about her talent for improvisation.
“The Open Window,” collected in Beasts and Super-Beasts, Project Gutenberg #269. The line follows Vera’s invented explanation for Framton Nuttel’s terrified departure; it is comic fictional narration about a deceptive storyteller.
“For if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing;”
De Quincey parodies moral slippery-slope arguments by absurdly treating murder as the first step toward increasingly ordinary vices such as robbery, drinking and procrastination.
Second Paper on Murder (1839), represented in Project Gutenberg #10708 under the Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts sequence. The passage is deliberate black comedy and satire; it does not endorse violence or present a serious behavioral progression.
“Nothing renders one so adventurous as not being able to feel the place where one’s pocket is situated.”
Hugo’s narrator jokes that having nothing left to lose can make Gringoire unexpectedly bold as he ventures farther into danger.
Notre-Dame de Paris, represented by Project Gutenberg #2610 in an English translation. The narrator makes the comic remark while the penniless Gringoire moves through Paris; the English wording is translation-layer text, not Hugo’s original French phrasing.
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
The line praises compression: saying less can sharpen meaning when the words that remain do real work.
Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2; Polonius says this while promising the King and Queen he will be brief, immediately before continuing at comic length. The dramatic irony is part of the line’s context.
“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”
Punctuality is treated as prudence: arriving early creates margin, while lateness spends time that cannot be restored.
The Merry Wives of Windsor; a comic line about timing and punctuality.
“Enough of Science and of Art; close up these barren leaves.”
Wordsworth provocatively contrasts formal study with direct experience, not because art or books are worthless but because second-hand learning can crowd out attention.
The Tables Turned, final stanza; the speaker urges his friend to close the books and bring a receptive heart outdoors.
