When I spotted this “battle of wits” quote as attributed to Shakespeare, I immediately thought of the closest thing I could remember, Beatrice’s zinger in Benedick’s general direction in Much Ado About Nothing:
Beatrice
- Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last
- conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and
- now is the whole man governed with one: so that if
- he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him
- bear it for a difference between himself and his
- horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left,
- to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his
- companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.
[Citation: Much Ado about Nothing – Act 1, Scene 1. Lines: 56 ]
This ends up pretty close. Roughly translated, “In our last battle of wits he lost most of his, and now he’s only left with one, so I’m going to let him keep it so people can tell the difference between him and his horse.”
Is it even possible to properly attribute the quote in question, though? It seems like the generic sort of thing many people have thought of over the years.
The best answer, I think, came from the ChaCha board. Now and then, for one of these quotes, I’ll see someone who has asked, “What play is that from?” Generally, does the quote always say “Shakespeare” but never say the play? That means he never said it. Anyway, somebody asks what play this wits quote is from. The answer that came back was, and I’m not making this up, “It’s not in a play. William Shakespeare the person said it.”
Oh. Dear ChaCha answerer, if you have access to documents written by Mr. Shakespeare that the rest of us don’t know about, please share! You could be a very, very rich person.
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I saw this quote attributed to a particular play in one of the GMAT questions, I can’t go back to the question though. Essentially you are all wrong. cheers
Congratulations! You win “Goofiest Quote on Today’s Internet.”
Persons less charitable than I might suggest that you may have more success in these Wars of Words if you get about garnering yourself a wit or two — at minimum. 🙄
Interesting. Well, luckily, every word Shakespeare wrote we still have, and you’re welcome to search. The expression “battle of wits” does not appear in them.
The earliest I’ve found so far is an 1866 use of the term:
http://books.google.com/books?id=oMc-AAAAYAAJ&dq=battle%20of%20wits%20unarmed&pg=PA236#v=onepage&q=battle%20of%20wits%20unarmed&f=false
I have seen it attributed to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but of course that’s incorrect (and we all know a GMAT test *never* is *eyeroll). The Open Source Shakespeare has a searchable complete text—nothing there, either.
I read that the quote is something he said and wrote but was not in one of his plays.
whaaaaat? If it was not in one of his plays… then where exactly do we have record of it, 403 years after his death. All that remains is his plays and sonnets. I:f you have access to private letters, facebook videos he made, etc, please share them with the rest of us!
Mystery solved……..
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/24/wit-battle/
I’m pretty sure it’s from “The Taming of the Shrew”