Motivational Quotes

Humor

The comic is the perception of the opposite; humor is the feeling of it.

- Eco, Umberto

Best Quotes about Humor

Never say a humorous thing to a man who does not possess humor. He will always use it in evidence against you.

Tree, Sir Herbert Beerbohm

Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here.

Truman, Harry S

Humor is also a way of saying something serious.

T. S. Eliot

Humor is our way of defending ourselves from life's absurdities by thinking absurdly about them.

Lewis Mumford

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law.

Clark, Dick

They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure.

Hemingway, Ernest

The happiness or unhappiness of men depends as much on their humors as on fortune.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.

Edward De Bono

10.

Where ever you find humor, you find pathos close by it side.

Whipple, Edwin P.

11.

The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow.

Socrates

12.

Humor is everywhere, in that there's irony in just about anything a human does.

Bill Nye

13.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people --that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.

Thurber, James

14.

Humor, a good sense of it, is to Americans what manhood is to Spaniards and we will go to great lengths to prove it. Experiments with laboratory rats have shown that, if one psychologist in the room laughs at something a rat does, all of the other psychologists in the room will laugh equally. Nobody wants to be left holding the joke.

Keillor, Garrison

15.

One never needs their humor as much as when they argue with a fool.

Proverb, Chinese

16.

Good taste and humor are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore.

Muggeridge, Malcolm

17.

As a person is so must you humor them.

Terence

18.

Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. So if it is correct to say that humor was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

19.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

20.

A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth.

Conrad, Joseph

21.

Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him.

Gary, Roman

22.

Humor has been a fashioning instrument in America, cleaving its way through the national life, holding tenaciously to the spread elements of that life. Its mode has often been swift and coarse and ruthless, beyond art and beyond established civilization. It has engaged in warfare against the established heritage, against the bonds of pioneer existence. Its objective --the unconscious objective of a disunited people --has seemed to be that of creating fresh bonds, a new unity, the semblance of a society and the rounded completion of an American type.

Rourke, Constance

23.

The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.

James Thurber

24.

Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?

Dick Clark

25.

Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.

Martin, Steve

26.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

27.

I am a great friend to public amusements, for they keep the people from vice.

Johnson, Samuel

28.

There's nothing like a gleam of humor to reassure you that a fellow human being is ticking inside a strange face.

Eva Hoffman

29.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Aristotle

30.

Good humor isn't a trait of character, it is an art which requires practice.

Seabury, David

31.

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.

Burgess, (Frank) Gelett

32.

A jest often decides matters of importance more effectual and happily than seriousness.

Horace

33.

Even the gods love jokes.

Plato

34.

People of humor are always in some degree people of genius.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

35.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

36.

Humor -- the perfect relationship of the parts to the whole.

37.

Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.

E. B. White

38.

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

39.

Any discussion of the problems of being funny in America will not make sense unless we substitute the word wit for humor. Humor inspires sympathetic good-natured laughter and is favored by the healing-power gang. Wit goes for the jugular, not the jocular, and it's the opposite of football; instead of building character, it tears it down.

King, Florence

40.

Life is tough, and if you have the ability to laugh at it you have the ability to enjoy it.

Salma Hayek

41.

Isn't it sad how some people can't be funny, so they have to settle for being obnoxious?

42.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

43.

Our five senses are incomplete without the sixth -- a sense of humor.

44.

The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh

Reiner, Carl

45.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

Sterne, Laurence

46.

Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment.

Kleiser, Grenville

47.

Levity is often less foolish and gravity less wise than each of them appears.

Colton, Charles Caleb

48.

Be simple in words, manners, and gestures. Amuse as well as instruct. If you can make a man laugh, you can make him think and make him like and believe you.

Smith, Alfred E.

49.

A joke was not a single-use item but something you brought out again and again until it fell apart in your hand like a cheap umbrella.

David Nicholls

50.

Fortune and humor govern the world.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De