Motivational Quotes

Humor

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

Best Quotes about Humor

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

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

Seabury, David

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

If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.

Gandhi, Mahatma

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

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

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Peter Ustinov

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

Edward De Bono

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

Procter, J. J.

10.

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

Charlie Chaplin

11.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

12.

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

13.

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

Knox, Ronald

14.

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

Proverb, Chinese

15.

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

Johnson, Samuel

16.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

17.

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

Martin, Steve

18.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

19.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

Mel Brooks

20.

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

Mark Twain

21.

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

Martin, Steve

22.

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

James Thurber

23.

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

Bruce, Lenny

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.

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

26.

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

Nelson, Lord

27.

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

Herold, Don

28.

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

Maclaine, Shirley

29.

A rich man's joke is always funny.

Brown, Thomas Edward

30.

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

Trilling, Lionel

31.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

32.

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

33.

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

Williamson, Nicol

34.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

35.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

36.

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

Clark, Dick

37.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

38.

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

Proverb, Latin

39.

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

40.

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

41.

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

Mel Brooks

42.

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

Diller, Phyllis

43.

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

Gary, Roman

44.

Humor is also a way of saying something serious.