Motivational Quotes

Humor

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

- Proverb, Latin

Best Quotes about Humor

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

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

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

Knox, Ronald

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

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

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

Gary, Roman

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

Procter, J. J.

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

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

10.

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

Martin, Steve

11.

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

Whipple, Edwin P.

12.

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

Horace

13.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

14.

Humor is also a way of saying something serious.

T. S. Eliot

15.

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

Proverb, Chinese

16.

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

17.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

18.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

19.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

20.

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

Mary Hirsch

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Charlie Chaplin

24.

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

Muggeridge, Malcolm

25.

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

26.

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

27.

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

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

28.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

29.

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

Martin, Steve

30.

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

Gandhi, Mahatma

31.

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

32.

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

33.

Our five senses are incomplete without the sixth -- a sense of humor.

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Dick Clark

37.

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

Maclaine, Shirley

38.

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

Clark, Dick

39.

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

Horace Walpole

40.

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

A. Whitney Brown

41.

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

42.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

43.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

44.

A rich man's joke is always funny.

Brown, Thomas Edward

45.

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