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

Herold, Don

The secret to humor is surprise.

Aristotle

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

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

Trilling, Lionel

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

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.

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

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

Seabury, David

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

Wilson, Flip

10.

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

Gary, Roman

11.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

12.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

13.

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

Williamson, Nicol

14.

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

Proverb, Chinese

15.

The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.

Horace Walpole

16.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

17.

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

Charlie Chaplin

18.

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

19.

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

20.

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

Knox, Ronald

21.

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

Rourke, Constance

22.

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

23.

Humor is also a way of saying something serious.

T. S. Eliot

24.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

Sterne, Laurence

25.

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

26.

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

Martin, Steve

27.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

28.

As a person is so must you humor them.

Terence

29.

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

Maclaine, Shirley

30.

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

A. Whitney Brown

31.

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

32.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

33.

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.

Burgess, (Frank) Gelett

34.

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

James Thurber

35.

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

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

36.

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

37.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

38.

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

James Thurber

39.

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

Lewis Mumford

40.

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

Clark, Dick

41.

Comedy is a tragedy plus time.

Burnett, Carol

42.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Peter Ustinov

43.

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

44.

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

Martin, Steve

45.

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

Nelson, Lord

46.

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

Gandhi, Mahatma

47.

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