Motivational Quotes

Humor

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

Best Quotes about Humor

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

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

Joubert, Joseph

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

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

Martin, Steve

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

Life is tough, and if you have the ability to laugh at it you have the ability to enjoy it.

Salma Hayek

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.

Burgess, (Frank) Gelett

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.

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs-jolted by every pebble in the road.

Beecher, Henry Ward

10.

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

Socrates

11.

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

Eco, Umberto

12.

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

Williamson, Nicol

13.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

14.

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

Bruce, Lenny

15.

A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling.

Fredrich

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Proverb, Chinese

19.

Even the gods love jokes.

Plato

20.

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

Trilling, Lionel

21.

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

Seabury, David

22.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

23.

Humor is everywhere, in that there's irony in just about anything a human does.

Bill Nye

24.

Fortune and humor govern the world.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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.

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

Charlie Chaplin

27.

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

Proverb, Latin

28.

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

29.

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

Johnson, Samuel

30.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

31.

As a person is so must you humor them.

Terence

32.

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

Conrad, Joseph

33.

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

Horace

34.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

Mel Brooks

35.

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

36.

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

Whipple, Edwin P.

37.

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

38.

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

Gary, Roman

39.

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

40.

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

41.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

42.

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

43.

People of humor are always in some degree people of genius.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

44.

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

Dick Clark

45.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Aristotle

46.

Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.

Borge, Victor

47.

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

Eva Hoffman

48.

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

49.

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

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

50.

Where humor is concerned there are no standards - no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.

John Kenneth Galbraith