“Humour is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.”

— Virginia Woolf, "On Not Knowing Greek", The Common Reader (1925)

About Virginia Woolf

1882 – 1941

English author and essayist considered one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century. Known for stream-of-consciousness writing and pioneering essays on women and literature.

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“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”

— Virginia Woolf

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Arrange whatever pieces come your way.”

— Virginia Woolf

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

— Virginia Woolf

“Wit is cultured insolence.”

— Aristotle

“A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.”

— Khalil Gibran

“The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.”

— Francis Bacon

“Humor is the most engaging cowardice.”

— Robert Frost

“At bottom the world isn't a joke.”

— Robert Frost

“This type is the grotesque; its new form is comedy.”

— Victor Hugo

“Humour is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.”

About Virginia Woolf

More from Virginia Woolf

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