Institutio Oratoria

Such I have either learned from others or discovered from my own experience to be the commonest sources of humour. But I must repeat that the number of ways in which one may speak wittily are of no less infinite variety than those in which one may speak seriously, for they depend on persons, place, time and chances, which are numberless.

I have, therefore, touched on the topics of humour that I may not be taxed with having omitted them; but with regard to my remarks on the actual practice and manner of jesting, I venture to assert that they are absolutely indispensable. To these Domitius Marsus, who wrote an elaborate treatise on Urbanity, adds several types of saying, which are not laughable, but rather elegant sayings with a certain charm and attraction of their own, which are suitable even to speeches of the most serious kind: they are characterized by a certain urbane wit, but not of a kind to raise a laugh.