Motivational Quotes

Humor

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

- Zimmermann, Johann Georg

Best Quotes about Humor

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

Maclaine, Shirley

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

Horace Walpole

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

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

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

Charlie Chaplin

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

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

Strachey, Lionel

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

10.

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

11.

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

12.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Johnson, Samuel

17.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Aristotle

18.

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

Joubert, Joseph

19.

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

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

20.

What's the point of havin'a rapier wit if I can't use it to stab people?

Jeph Jacques

21.

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

Robert Benchley

22.

Comedy is nothing more than tragedy deferred.

Pico Iyer

23.

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

Warhol, Andy

24.

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

James Thurber

25.

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

Trilling, Lionel

26.

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

Fredrich

27.

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

Nelson, Lord

28.

Fortune and humor govern the world.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

29.

The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh

Reiner, Carl

30.

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

31.

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

Eva Hoffman

32.

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

Albee, Edward

33.

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

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.

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

36.

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

37.

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

38.

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

Seabury, David

39.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Peter Ustinov

40.

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

Martin, Steve

41.

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.

42.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

43.

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

Herold, Don

44.

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

Dick Clark

45.

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

46.

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

Horace

47.

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

48.

Burt Reynolds once asked me out. I was in his room.

Diller, Phyllis

49.

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

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

50.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert