Motivational Quotes

Humor

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

- Procter, J. J.

Best Quotes about Humor

As a person is so must you humor them.

Terence

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

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

Rourke, Constance

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

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

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

Procter, J. J.

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

Martin, Steve

Humor is, I think, the sublets and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers

Rosten, Leo

The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh

Reiner, Carl

10.

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

Williamson, Nicol

11.

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

12.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

13.

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

James Thurber

14.

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

15.

What some people invent the rest enlarge.

Swift, Jonathan

16.

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.

Burgess, (Frank) Gelett

17.

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

Bill Nye

18.

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

Salma Hayek

19.

Fortune and humor govern the world.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

20.

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

Jeph Jacques

21.

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

Johnson, Samuel

22.

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

Warhol, Andy

23.

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

Eva Hoffman

24.

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

Bruce, Lenny

25.

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

26.

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

27.

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

Edward De Bono

28.

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

Muggeridge, Malcolm

29.

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.

30.

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

31.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

32.

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

33.

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

Hughes, Langston

34.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

35.

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

Horace

36.

Where humor is concerned there are no standards - no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.

John Kenneth Galbraith

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Wilson, Flip

41.

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

Proverb, Chinese

42.

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

Seabury, David

43.

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

44.

The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.

Horace Walpole

45.

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

James Thurber

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Diller, Phyllis

49.

A rich man's joke is always funny.

Brown, Thomas Edward

50.

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

Robert Benchley