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A joke's a very serious thing.
Author: Charles Churchill
Source: Ghost (bk. 4)
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A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a
pocket.
Author: John Dennis
Source: in "The Gentleman's Magazine", vol. LI, p. 324
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No time to break jests when the heartstrings are about to be
broken.
Author: Thomas Fuller
Source: Holy and Profane States (maxim VIII)
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Jest not with the two-edged sword of God's word.
Author: Thomas Fuller
Source: Holy and Profane States--Of Jesting (maxim II)
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He that will lose his friend for a jest, deserves to die a beggar
by the bargain.
Author: Thomas Fuller
Source: Holy and Profane States--Of Jesting (maxim VII)
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Less at thine own things laugh; lest in the jest
Thy person share, and the conceit advance,
Make not thy sport abuses: for the fly
That feeds on dung is colored thereby.
Author: George Herbert
Source: Temple--Church Porch (st. 39)
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People that make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on
the railroad tracks.
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Source: Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (I)
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And however are Dennises take offence,
A double meaning shows double sense;
And if proverbs tell truth,
A double tooth
Is wisdom's adopted dwelling.
Author: Thomas Hood
Source: Miss Kilmansegg
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Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;
Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart,
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.
Author: Samuel Johnson
Source: London (l. 165)
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Jesting, often, only proves a want of intellect.
[Fr., La moquerie est souvent une indigence d'esprit.]
Author: Samuel Johnson
Source: London (l. 165)
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Joking decides great things,
Stronger and better oft than earnest can.
Author: John Milton
Source: Horace
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That's a good joke but we do it much better in England.
Author: General James Edward Oglethorpe
Source: so a Prince of Wurtemberg who at dinner flicked some wine in Oglethorpe's face
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A jester, a bad character.
[Fr., Diseur de bon mots, mauvais caractere.]
Author: Blaise Pascal
Source: Pensees (art VI, 22)
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If anything is spoken in jest, it is not fair to turn it to
earnest.
[Lat., Si quid dictum est per jocum,
Non aequum est id te serio praevortier.]
Author: Plautus (Titus Maccius Plautus)
Source: Amphitruo (III, 2, 39)
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Joking set aside.
[Lat., Omissis jocis.]
Author: Pliny the Younger (Caius Caecilius Secundus)
Source: Epistles (I, 21)
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A jest loses its point when the jester laughs himself.
[Ger., Des Spass verliert Alles, wenn der Spassmacher selber
lacht.]
Author: Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
Source: Fiesco (I, 7)
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Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a
thousand times. And now how abhorred in my imagination it is!
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Hamlet at V, i)
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Jesters do oft prove prophets.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: King Lear (Regan at V, iii)
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A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Love's Labor's Lost (Rosaline at V, ii)
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(Andrew:) I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But
what's your jest?
(Maria:) A dry jest, sir.
(Andrew:) Are you full of them?
(Maria:) Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends. Marry, now I
let go your hand, I am barren.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (Andrew & Maria at I, iii)
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A college joke to cure the dumps.
Author: Jonathan Swift
Source: Cassinus and Peter
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A bitter jest, when it comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp
sting behind it.
[Lat., Aspere facetiae, ubi nimis ex vero traxere,
Acram sui memoriam relinquunt.]
Author: Tacitus (Caius Cornelius Tacitus)
Source: Annales (XV, 68)
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