Some of the funniest words are spoken on the spur of the moment. This is a collection of ten brilliant or witty quotes. If you have a favorite witty quote, be sure to put it in the comments for all to enjoy.
1. W. C. Fields
I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy.
And another:
I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
2. Oscar Wilde
I am not young enough to know everything.
And as he was probably one of the most witty men in history, we need another:
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
3. Sir Winston Churchill
Lady Nancy Astor (to Churchill): “Sir, you’re drunk!”
Churchill: “Yes, Madam, I am. But in the morning, I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”
Churchill and Astor are famous for these repartees, so I have to include a second:
Lady Astor: “If you were my husband, I’d put arsenic in your coffee.”
Churchill: “Madam, if I were your husband, I’d drink it!”
4. Nancy Mitford
I Love children, especially when they cry for then someone takes them away.
And another:
An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off; it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.
5. Dorothy Parker
I’ve never been a millionaire but I just know I’d be darling at it.
And:
If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.
6. Douglas Adams
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move.
7. Alice Longworth (daughter of Theodore Roosevelt)
“If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”
8. Orson Welles
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.”
9. Margot Asquith
What a pity, when Christopher Colombus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it.
10. Margaret Thatcher
I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
Forget love – I’d rather fall in chocolate! Sandra J. Dykes
best quote site online Quote Garden
Cyn – haha that is definitely brilliant!
Robert Frost “I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life in three words: It goes on”
wat do u meam
seymour: oh how true!
you listed my favorite quote by Douglas Adams =)
Nobody goes to that restaurant any more. It’s too crowded.
-Yogi Berra
Nice! Makes me wonder if Columbus could have been Emperor of America….
Brian: I can’t imagine that going down too well these days
My favorite is :
“Cheese – milk’s leap toward immortality.”
Clifton Fadiman
Andre: I like that!
Here’s a good one..
“the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”
———-
Samuel P. Huntington
hehe Churchill was a funny guy.
My favorite quote of all time:
“A single death is a tragedy… a million deaths is a statistic.” – Joseph Stalin
I think it was WC Field but how about-
“I don’t drink water. Fish ***** in it.”
Imagine you are a member of Congress. Now imagine you are an idiot…but I repeat myself.
Mark Twain.
Fe…spot on! always loved that quote. so true even today.
“Women will forgive anything. Otherwise, the race would have died out long ago.” — Robert A. Heinlein
Fe: hilarious!
Bonnie_: ah Heinlein – the master!
“Never try and teach a pig to sing: it’s a waste of time, and it annoys the pig.” –Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”, (Robert A. Heinlein)
“No! You’re NOT entitled to your own opinion. You’re entitled to your own INFORMED opinion.” –Harlan Ellison
“Life is just one damned thing after another.” –Elbert Hubbard
“Very funny, Mr. Scott. Now beam down my clothes.” –Jame T. Kirk
Okay, okay … that third was wasn’t really a quote. But it should have been.
The Welles quote wasn’t actually him saying that, it was his character from the movie The Third Man, in the ferris wheel scene.
Great list though.
“Call on God, but row away from the rocks.”
— Hunter S. Thompson
tom: excellent quote
Oscar Wilde: There is only one thing worse that being talked about, that’s not being talked about.
GKlug: I could do a whole list of just Wilde quotes – he was utterly brilliant.
You should make an Oscar Wilde list, given he was one of the funniest men who ever lived.
Bacon – definitely – he was incredibly witty.
“To be, or not to be… or something else!”
Svetislav Basara
You’d have to consider yourself lucky if you make it out of life alive. Axel Rose.
“It’s easier to seek forgiveness than ask for permission.” – Proverb
“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”
–Tom Waits
My fav quotes, wilde and austen were brilliant!
“A fashion is merely a form of uglines so unbearable that we are compelled to alter it every six months.”
~ Oscar Wilde
“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”
~Jane Austen
It may have already been said, but Stephen Fry one repeated a famous quote by Oscar Wilde when asked if he had anything to declare when he was stopped at an airport. He said ‘I have nothing to declare but my own genius!’
My grandfather told me the story of a witty friend of his who was speaking in parliament in South Africa. He got fed up with the crowd and announced “Half of you are donkeys!!” to which the chairperson hastily insisted “Retract your statement sir! RETRACT!”, to which he replied, “Half of you are NOT donkeys.”
“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria” – Ben Franklin
“There are always Eskimos ready to work out the guidelines for Congo inhabitants on how to act in case of the extreme heatwave” – Stanislaw Jerzy Lec.
If you don’t find it witty enough that’s probably due to my poor translation (there are many other quotes of Lec easily available in English but, sadly, not this particular one).
“what’s mine is mine whats yours is negotiable”
JFK
“The first draft of everything is bull*****.”
Ernest Hemingway.
nice.esp churchill!!
“I heard that your brain stops growing when you start doing drugs. Let’s see, I guess that makes me 19.”
– Steven Tyler
…yeah that should definitely be on here.
I just love and hate Margaret Thatcher. we have this love and hate relationship. I love the woman, her guts and everything but on the other had, I hate the fact that I love her.
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt…
-Mark Twain
Polly: I somehow doubt that Mark Twain ever used the word “ain’t” although I suppose it’s possible.
My favourite Oscar quote:
“True friends stab you in the front”
And for fun…
I don’t make predictions and I never will (Paul Gascoigne)
William Faulkner–“I’m bad and I’m going to hell, and I don’t care. I’d rather be in hell than anywhere where you are.”
“I’d like to learn a new language: Scottish. It’s a mixture of English and alcohol. You drink a pint and end each sentence with ‘you bastard’.” – Sean Meo
“If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” -Albert Einstein
and
“For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.”
- Bob Wells
this may be from a play, but i think it deserves recognition
A transvestite to a person harassing them: “I’m more of a man then you’ll ever be, and more of a woman then you’ll ever get.”
-Jonathan Larson
“it takes no time to fall in love, but it takes you years to know what love is”
-jason mraz
hmm.. great quotes by oscar wilde and churchill and you go for a jason mraz quote.
read a book.
“The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive. “
I got a few I have in mind…
“The secret of being a boring is to say everything.” -Voltaire
“When the candles are out all women are fair.” -Plutarch
“My wife and I was happy happy for twenty years… and then we met!” -Rodney Dangerfield
“If I’m two faced, why I chose this one?” -Abraham Lincoln
“In court of dating, women are the judge and jury and we don’t even have an lawyer.” -Matthew
ok, lets start:
“Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.”
Albert Einstein
“To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge”
Benjamin Disraeli
“I’D prefer to die standing, than to live on my knees”
Che Guevara
“Ut olim vitiis, sic nunc legibus laboramus.”
(As we once suffered from our vices, we now suffer form our laws)
Tacitus
“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows”
Epictetus
One of my favorites…
“Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.”
~Albert Einstein
My favorite, from theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was reviewing a student’s work: “This isn’t right. It’s not even wrong.”
“Liberalism is when A gets together with B to discuss how much C should give to D.” -William F. Buckley
“Shall the fear of being misunderstood prevent our doing what is right and good?” -Moliere
“No people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.” -Dean Acheson
“Socialism … confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all.” -Frederic Bastiat
No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. – Mark Twain
It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve. – Henry George
I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men’s rights. – Abraham Lincoln
No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power. – P. J. O’Rourke
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. – P.J. O’Rourke
There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. – P.J. O’Rourke
I like this one, however I can’t attribute it to any quote I’ve read or heard, maybe I’m the originator, “My modesty is world famous…” and a good tip, never jog your granny whilst shes shaving!, lastly, (a good riposte), “If I could do it all over again, I’d do it all over you”
Said by one of my fares,(on the subject of alcoholism), “Alcoholism is when one drink is too many, and a hundred is not enough” – he was actually a regular punter of ours, an Irishman who himself had had a few too many, but quite an astute statement I thought.
One of my favourite quotes is by Oscar Wilde. “Try everything once, expect incest and morris dancing”. (For the stateside folks its an English dance in which a bunch of guys dance about waving hankies. This advice has always stood me in good stead.
When Mahatma Gandi was asked what he thought of Western civilization he replied “I think it would be a very good idea”
One I always thought was quite funny:
No woman in my time will be prime minister or chancellor or foreign secretary – not the top jobs. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to be prime minister; you have to give yourself 100 percent.
– Margaret Thatcher
And even though it’s not a quote and I can’t remember who actually said the joke, I’ve always thought it was funny:
Waitress: [Thatcher is dining out with her Cabinet] Would you like to order, Madam?
Margaret Thatcher: Steak, please.
Waitress: How would you like it?
Margaret Thatcher: Raw
Waitress: And for the vegetables?
Margaret Thatcher: Oh? They’ll have the same as me…