Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.—Euripides.
Wishes.—The apparently irreconcilable dissimilarity between our wishes and our means, between our hearts and this world, remains a riddle.—Richter.
Wit.—I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit, and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch, and tumbling into it.—Johnson.
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.—Shakespeare.
Wit must grow like fingers. If it be taken from others 'tis like plums stuck upon blackthorns; there they are for a while, but they come to nothing.—Selden.
If he who has little wit needs a master to inform his stupidity, he who has much frequently needs ten to keep in check his worldly wisdom, which might otherwise, like a high-mettled charger, toss him to the ground.—Scriver.
To place wit above sense is to place superfluity above utility.—Madame de Maintenon.
Woe.—No scene of mortal life but teems with mortal woe.—Walter Scott.
Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.—Herrick.
So many miseries have crazed my voice, that my woe-wearied tongue is still.—Shakespeare.