Motivational Quotes

Humor

Comedy may be big business but it isn't pretty.

- Martin, Steve

Best Quotes about Humor

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

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

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

James Thurber

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

Mel Brooks

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

Bill Nye

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

Robert Benchley

Even the gods love jokes.

Plato

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

Charlie Chaplin

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

10.

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

11.

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

Mel Brooks

12.

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

Procter, J. J.

13.

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

Nelson, Lord

14.

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

15.

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

Edward De Bono

16.

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

17.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

18.

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

19.

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

Socrates

20.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

21.

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

Hughes, Langston

22.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

23.

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

Salma Hayek

24.

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

Rourke, Constance

25.

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

26.

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

Joubert, Joseph

27.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

28.

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

Trilling, Lionel

29.

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

Mary Hirsch

30.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

31.

What some people invent the rest enlarge.

Swift, Jonathan

32.

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.

33.

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

Proverb, Latin

34.

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

Gary, Roman

35.

Fortune and humor govern the world.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

36.

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

Conrad, Joseph

37.

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

Williamson, Nicol

38.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

39.

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.

Burgess, (Frank) Gelett

40.

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

Proverb, Chinese

41.

That is the saving grace of humor, if you fail no one is laughing at you.

A. Whitney Brown

42.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

43.

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

44.

As a person is so must you humor them.

Terence

45.

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

46.

The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh

Reiner, Carl

47.

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

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

48.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

Sterne, Laurence

49.

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

50.

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