Motivational Quotes

Humor

A rich man's joke is always funny.

- Brown, Thomas Edward

Best Quotes about Humor

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

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

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of

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

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

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

Twain, Mark

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

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

A brilliant epigram is a solemn platitude gone to a masquerade ball.

Strachey, Lionel

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

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

10.

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.

11.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

12.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

13.

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

Horace

14.

Comedy is nothing more than tragedy deferred.

Pico Iyer

15.

A person who knows how to laugh at himself will never ceased to be amused.

Maclaine, Shirley

16.

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

Martin, Steve

17.

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

18.

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

Gary, Roman

19.

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

Williamson, Nicol

20.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

21.

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

22.

Where ever you find humor, you find pathos close by it side.

Whipple, Edwin P.

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

27.

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

Seabury, David

28.

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

Albee, Edward

29.

Comedy is a tragedy plus time.

Burnett, Carol

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

33.

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

Eva Hoffman

34.

Humor is also a way of saying something serious.

T. S. Eliot

35.

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

36.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

37.

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

James Thurber

38.

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

Charlie Chaplin

39.

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

Trilling, Lionel

40.

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

Mary Hirsch

41.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

42.

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

Rourke, Constance

43.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

Mel Brooks

44.

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

Wilson, Flip

45.

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

James Thurber

46.

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

Knox, Ronald

47.

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

Conrad, Joseph

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Clark, Dick