Jest not in earnest. [ Motto ]
Jest with your equals. [ Danish Proverb ]
Leave a jest
When it pleases you best. [ Proverb ]
Better lose a jest than a friend. [ Proverb ]
An ill-timed jest has ruined many. [ Proverb ]
Haste thee. Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity.
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles.
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles. [ Milton ]
There's many a true tale told in jest. [ Proverb ]
Jest so that it may not become earnest. [ Spanish Proverb ]
Jest not with the eye or with religion. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal,
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest. [ William Shakespeare ]
Jest with life: for that only is it good. [ Voltaire ]
A friend must not be injured, even in jest. [ Syrus ]
Who thinks that Fortune cannot change her mind.
Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind. [ Pope ]
A jest driven too far brings home hate or scorn. [ Proverb ]
Truth may lie in laughter, and wisdom in a jest. [ Dr. W. Smith ]
Laugh not too much: the witty man laughs least:
For wit is news only to ignorance.
Less at thine own things laugh: lest in the jest
Thy person share, and the conceit advance. [ George Herbert ]
Many that are wits in jest, are fools in earnest. [ Proverb ]
Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them,
But in the less, foul profanation. [ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure ]
When the demand is a jest, the answer is a scoff. [ Proverb ]
Some had rather lose their friend than their jest. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Under ground Precedency's a jest; vassal and lord.
Grossly familiar, side by side consume. [ Blair ]
Things all are big with jest; nothing that's plain
But may be witty, if thou hast the vein ...
Many affecting wit beyond their power,
Have got to be a dear fool for an hour. [ George Herbert ]
A bold fellow is the jest of wise men, and the idol of fools. [ Proverb ]
To jest is tolerable, but to do harm by jest is insufferable. [ Proverb ]
Share not pears with your master either in jest or in earnest. [ Proverb ]
To jest at the expense of philosophy is truly to philosophise. [ Pascal ]
Call your husband cuckold in jest, and he'll never suspect you. [ Proverb ]
Jest with an ass, and he will flap you in the face with his tail. [ Proverb ]
He that will lose his friend for a jest deserves to die a beggar by the bargain. [ Thomas Fuller ]
A bitter jest, when it comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp sting behind it. [ Tacitus ]
A happy jest often gives birth to another; but the child is seldom worth the mother. [ Alfred Bougeart ]
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him that makes it. [ William Shakespeare, Love's Labor Lost ]
To stumble on a level surface is matter of jest; by a false step on a height you are hurled to the ground. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
What a cruel jest it would be to condemn those who continually boast of their virtues, to the strict practice of what they profess! [ De Finod ]
The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call of novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another. [ Samuel Johnson ]
A jest that makes a virtuous woman only smile, often frightens away a prude; but, when real danger forces the former to flee, the latter does not hesitate to advance. [ Latena ]