Motivational Quotes

Humor

Fortune and humor govern the world.

- La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

Best Quotes about Humor

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

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

Socrates

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

Bruce, Lenny

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

Muggeridge, Malcolm

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

Robert Benchley

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

Albee, Edward

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

Bill Nye

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

10.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

11.

Fortune and humor govern the world.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

12.

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

Martin, Steve

13.

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

Eva Hoffman

14.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

15.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Herold, Don

19.

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

Twain, Mark

20.

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

Joubert, Joseph

21.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

22.

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

23.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

24.

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

25.

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

Proverb, Latin

26.

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

27.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

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.

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

Horace

30.

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

31.

What some people invent the rest enlarge.

Swift, Jonathan

32.

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

33.

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

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of

34.

Comedy is a tragedy plus time.

Burnett, Carol

35.

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

36.

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

Gary, Roman

37.

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

Salma Hayek

38.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

Sterne, Laurence

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.

A rich man's joke is always funny.

Brown, Thomas Edward

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.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Johnson, Samuel

46.

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

Conrad, Joseph

47.

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

James Thurber

48.

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