Motivational Quotes

Humor

There is this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means; draw it all out, and hold him to it.

- Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Best Quotes about Humor

We never respect those who amuse us, however we may smile at their comic powers.

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of

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

Whipple, Edwin P.

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

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

Johnson, Samuel

Get well cards have become so humorous that if you don't get sick you're missing half the fun.

Wilson, Flip

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

Martin, Steve

I used to think that everything was just being funny but now I don't know. I mean, how can you tell?

Warhol, Andy

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

Robert Benchley

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

Bill Nye

10.

Fortune and humor govern the world.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

11.

Wit is a weapon. Jokes are a masculine way of inflicting superiority. But humor is the pursuit of a gentle grin, usually in solitude.

Muir, Frank

12.

Humor is a rubber sword - it allows you to make a point without drawing blood.

Mary Hirsch

13.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

14.

As a person is so must you humor them.

Terence

15.

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

Dick Clark

16.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

Sterne, Laurence

17.

The best defence against misguided arrogance is a keen sense of humour.

Kathryn L. Nelson

18.

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs-jolted by every pebble in the road.

Beecher, Henry Ward

19.

A rich man's joke is always funny.

Brown, Thomas Edward

20.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

21.

Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.

Borge, Victor

22.

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

Gary, Roman

23.

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.

Mel Brooks

24.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

25.

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

26.

A person who knows how to laugh at himself will never ceased to be amused.

Maclaine, Shirley

27.

An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.

Irving, Washington

28.

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

29.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

30.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

Mel Brooks

31.

Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony.

Trilling, Lionel

32.

Even the gods love jokes.

Plato

33.

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

34.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Aristotle

35.

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

Conrad, Joseph

36.

One should never risk a joke, even of the mildest and most unexceptional charters, except among people of culture and wit.

La Bruyere, Jean De

37.

If you're at school and you're not that bright or good-looking or popular or whatever, and one day you say something and someone laughs, well, you sort of grab onto it, don't you? you think, well I run funny and I've got this stupid big face and big thighs and no-one fancies me, but at least I can make people laugh. And It's such a nice feeling, making someone laugh, that maybe you get a bit reliant on it. Like, if you're not funny then you're not... anything.

David Nicholls

38.

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

39.

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

Muggeridge, Malcolm

40.

What some people invent the rest enlarge.

Swift, Jonathan

41.

There is this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means; draw it all out, and hold him to it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

42.

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

Clark, Dick

43.

A brilliant epigram is a solemn platitude gone to a masquerade ball.

Strachey, Lionel

44.

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.

Charlie Chaplin

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Eva Hoffman

48.

What's the point of havin'a rapier wit if I can't use it to stab people?

Jeph Jacques

49.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

Twain, Mark

50.

All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.

Bruce, Lenny