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

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

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

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

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

Hughes, Langston

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

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

As a person is so must you humor them.

Terence

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

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

10.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Peter Ustinov

11.

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

Maclaine, Shirley

12.

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

Williamson, Nicol

13.

Even the gods love jokes.

Plato

14.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

15.

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

16.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

17.

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

Knox, Ronald

18.

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

Gandhi, Mahatma

19.

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

Socrates

20.

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

Seabury, David

21.

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

A. Whitney Brown

22.

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

Proverb, Latin

23.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

24.

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

25.

Comedy is a tragedy plus time.

Burnett, Carol

26.

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

Joubert, Joseph

27.

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

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of

28.

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

Strachey, Lionel

29.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

30.

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

31.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

32.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

33.

The comic is the perception of the opposite; humor is the feeling of it.

Eco, Umberto

34.

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

Horace

35.

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

Mel Brooks

36.

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

Proverb, Chinese

37.

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

38.

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

Martin, Steve

39.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

40.

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

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

41.

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

Gary, Roman

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Bruce, Lenny

47.

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

Mary Hirsch

48.

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

Edward De Bono

49.

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