Motivational Quotes

Humor

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

Best Quotes about Humor

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

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

Lewis Mumford

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

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

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

Twain, Mark

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

Muggeridge, Malcolm

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

Proverb, Latin

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

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Proverb, Chinese

14.

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

Procter, J. J.

15.

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

Warhol, Andy

16.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

17.

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

Herold, Don

18.

Even the gods love jokes.

Plato

19.

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

20.

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

Mary Hirsch

21.

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

22.

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

Rourke, Constance

23.

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

Edward De Bono

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

A. Whitney Brown

27.

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

28.

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

Jeph Jacques

29.

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

30.

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

31.

A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling.

Fredrich

32.

Comedy is a tragedy plus time.

Burnett, Carol

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Nelson, Lord

36.

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

James Thurber

37.

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

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of

38.

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

Dick Clark

39.

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

40.

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

Knox, Ronald

41.

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.

Burgess, (Frank) Gelett

42.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

43.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

44.

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

Trilling, Lionel

45.

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

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.

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

Clark, Dick

48.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

49.

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

50.

I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.