Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

More from Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)

• Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
• All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it.
• Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
• Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone — but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.
• Grace has been defined the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
• Grace is the absence of every thing that indicates pain or difficulty, or hesitation or incongruity.