Il ne faut point donner d'esprit a'   ses personnages; mais savoir les placer dans des circonstances qui leur en donnent. You should not give wit to your characters, but know instead how to put them in situations which will make them witty.

-Diderot, Denis
  Entretiens sur le fils naturel, pt.2.

L'esprit de l'escalier. Staircase wit.

-Diderot, Denis
^8  That is, the witty reply that comes to mind after leaving the company, while descending the stairs. Paradoxe sur le come¤ d ien (published1830).

And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit Can well direct him, where to look for it.

-Donne,John
  'An  Anatomy of the World: The First  Anniversary'.

A thing well said will be wit in all languages†though it may lose something in the translation.

-Dryden,John
  An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,'The Wit of the  Ancients: The Universal'.

Shakespeare†was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature; he looked inwards, and found her there† He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great.

-Dryden,John
  An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,'Shakespeare and Ben  Jonson Compared'.

One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it.

-Dryden,John
  Of Ben  Jonson.  An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,'Shakespeare and Ben  Jonson Compared'.

If I would compare [Jonson] with Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakespeare the greater wit.

-Dryden,John
  An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,'Shakespeare and Ben  Jonson Compared'.

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, His rising fogs prevail upon the day.

-Dryden,John
  MacFlecknoe (published1682), l.19^24.

Much malice mingled with a little wit Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ.

-Dryden,John
  The Hind and the Panther, pt.3, l.1^2.

No princely pomp, no wealthy store, No force to win the victory, No wily wit to salve a sore, No shape to feed each gazing eye; To none of these I yield as thrall. For why my mind doth serve for all.

-Dyer, Sir Edward
  'In Praise of a Contented Mind'.

The moving finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

-Fitzgerald, Edward
  The Ruba¤  iya¤  t of Omar Khayya¤  m of Naishapur, stanza 51.

Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining; Though equal to all things, for all things unfit, Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.

-Goldsmith, Oliver
  Of Edmund Burke. Retaliation, l.29^32.

A Free Man is he, that in those things, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to.

-Hobbes,Thomas
Leviathan, pt.2, ch.21.

Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of ideas, the discoveryof some occult relation between imagesin appearance remote from each other.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
^2  In The Rambler.

This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Of Lord Chesterfield. Quoted in  James Boswell  The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

Talking of the Comedy of 'The Rehearsal', he said 'It has not enough wit to keep it sweet.' This was easy;öhe therefore caught himself, and pronounced a more rounded sentence; 'It hasnot vitalityenoughtopreserve it from putrefaction.'

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark,  Jun. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.4.

Ay, a plague on't, My conscience fools my wit!

-Jonson, Ben
  Volpone, act 2, sc.7.

If there be not in her, a proud mind, a crafty wit, and an indurate heart against God and his truth, my judgment faileth me.

-Knox,John
  After his first meeting with Mary, Queen of Scots. History of the Reformation in Scotland, vol.2.

C'est un me¤  tier que de faire un livre, comme de faire une pendule; il faut plus que de l'esprit pour e"  tre auteur. It is as much a trade to write a book as it is to make a watch; it takes more than wit to make an author.

-La Bruye'  re,Jean de
  Les Caracte'  res ou les m½urs de ce sie'  cle,'Des ouvrages de l'esprit', no.3.

Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork And drive the brute off? Six days of the week it soils With its sickening poisonö Just for paying a few bills! That's out of proportion.

-Larkin, Philip Arthur
  'Toads'.