Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Wit consists in knowing the resemblance of things that differ, and the difference of things that are alike.
People are pretty much alike. It's only that our differences are more susceptible to definition than our similarities.
Wit invents; inspiration reveals. The inventions of wit are conceits - metaphors and paradoxes - that discover the secret correspondences that unite beings and things among and with themselves; inspiration is condemned to dissipate its revelations - unless a form can be found to contain them.
People who live together naturally catch the looks and air of one another and without having one feature alike, they contract a something in the whole countenance which strikes one as a resemblance.
The ways in which things are superficially similar but also distinct is interesting to me.
Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.
Wit is the most rascally, contemptible, beggarly thing on the face of the earth.
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.
Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.