Motivational Quotes

Humor

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

- Dick Clark

Best Quotes about Humor

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

Martin, Steve

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

Mel Brooks

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

A rich man's joke is always funny.

Brown, Thomas Edward

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

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

Fortune and humor govern the world.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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

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

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of

10.

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

Dick Clark

11.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

Twain, Mark

12.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

13.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

14.

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

15.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

16.

Even the gods love jokes.

Plato

17.

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

James Thurber

18.

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

19.

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

20.

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

21.

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

Herold, Don

22.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

23.

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

Edward De Bono

24.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Joubert, Joseph

28.

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

Gary, Roman

29.

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

Seabury, David

30.

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

Eco, Umberto

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.

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

33.

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

Maclaine, Shirley

34.

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

A. Whitney Brown

35.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Gandhi, Mahatma

39.

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

40.

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

Wilson, Flip

41.

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

Williamson, Nicol

42.

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

Horace

43.

Humor, a good sense of it, is to Americans what manhood is to Spaniards and we will go to great lengths to prove it. Experiments with laboratory rats have shown that, if one psychologist in the room laughs at something a rat does, all of the other psychologists in the room will laugh equally. Nobody wants to be left holding the joke.

Keillor, Garrison

44.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

45.

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

Bill Nye

46.

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

47.

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

Horace Walpole