Motivational Quotes

Humor

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

- Zimmermann, Johann Georg

Best Quotes about Humor

1.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

2.

I used to think that everything was just being funny but now I don't know. I mean, how can you tell?

Warhol, Andy

3.

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

4.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

Mel Brooks

5.

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

6.

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

7.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

8.

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

Edward De Bono

9.

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

Procter, J. J.

10.

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

11.

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

Johnson, Samuel

12.

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

Trilling, Lionel

13.

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

Martin, Steve

14.

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

15.

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

Eco, Umberto

16.

Comedy is nothing more than tragedy deferred.

Pico Iyer

17.

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

18.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Peter Ustinov

19.

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

Socrates

20.

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

21.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Charlie Chaplin

25.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

26.

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

Lewis Mumford

27.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

Sterne, Laurence

28.

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

29.

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

Joubert, Joseph

30.

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

Gary, Roman

31.

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

32.

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

Clark, Dick

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Even the gods love jokes.

Plato

36.

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

Herold, Don

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.

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

40.

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

Mel Brooks

41.

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

Hughes, Langston

42.

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

Robert Benchley

43.

I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.