Motivational Quotes

Humor

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

- La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

Best Quotes about Humor

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

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

Eva Hoffman

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

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

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

Seabury, David

I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humor.

Nelson, Lord

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

Charlie Chaplin

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

Humor is a whisper from the soul, imploring mind and body to relax, let go and be at peace again.

10.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Aristotle

11.

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

Proverb, Chinese

12.

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

Wilson, Flip

13.

There are things of deadly earnest that can only be mentioned under the cover of a joke.

Procter, J. J.

14.

The right honorable gentlemen is indebted to his memory for his jokes and his imagination for his facts.

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

15.

A humorist is a person who feels bad, but who feels good about it.

Herold, Don

16.

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

Gary, Roman

17.

It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humor.

Maugham, W. Somerset

18.

The role of a comedian is to make the audience laugh, at a minimum of once every fifteen seconds.

Bruce, Lenny

19.

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

20.

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

Twain, Mark

21.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Peter Ustinov

22.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

Mel Brooks

23.

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

Proverb, Latin

24.

The hall-mark of American humor is its pose of illiteracy.

Knox, Ronald

25.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

26.

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

Horace

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Dick Clark

30.

Burt Reynolds once asked me out. I was in his room.

Diller, Phyllis

31.

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

32.

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

Socrates

33.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

34.

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

Hughes, Langston

35.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.

James Thurber

36.

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

Salma Hayek

37.

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

Clark, Dick

38.

Fortune and humor govern the world.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

39.

An emotional man may possess no humor, but a humorous man usually has deep pockets of emotion, sometimes tucked away or forgotten.

Rourke, Constance

40.

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

Bill Nye

41.

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

42.

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.

43.

If you can make a woman laugh you can do anything with her.

Williamson, Nicol

44.

As a person is so must you humor them.

Terence

45.

There is always some frivolity in excellent minds; they have wings to rise, but also stray.

Joubert, Joseph

46.

Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humor?

Colby, Frank Moore

47.

Humor is also a way of saying something serious.

T. S. Eliot

48.

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

Lewis Mumford

49.

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

50.

True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.

Carlyle, Thomas