Motivational Quotes

Humor

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

Best Quotes about Humor

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

Knox, Ronald

The secret to humor is surprise.

Aristotle

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

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

Warhol, Andy

What some people invent the rest enlarge.

Swift, Jonathan

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

Bill Nye

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

Williamson, Nicol

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.

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

Charlie Chaplin

10.

An emotional man may possess no humor, but a humorous man usually has deep pockets of emotion, sometimes tucked away or forgotten.

Rourke, Constance

11.

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

Procter, J. J.

12.

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

Strachey, Lionel

13.

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

Bruce, Lenny

14.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

15.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

Sterne, Laurence

16.

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

Martin, Steve

17.

Comedy is nothing more than tragedy deferred.

Pico Iyer

18.

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

Proverb, Latin

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

James Thurber

22.

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

Edward De Bono

23.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

24.

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

James Thurber

25.

The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh

Reiner, Carl

26.

A joke was not a single-use item but something you brought out again and again until it fell apart in your hand like a cheap umbrella.

David Nicholls

27.

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

Martin, Steve

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Herold, Don

31.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

32.

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

33.

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

34.

A rich man's joke is always funny.

Brown, Thomas Edward

35.

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

Diller, Phyllis

36.

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

A. Whitney Brown

37.

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

38.

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

Socrates

39.

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

Jeph Jacques

40.

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

41.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

42.

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

Whipple, Edwin P.

43.

By blood a king, in heart a clown.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

44.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Peter Ustinov

45.

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

46.

Comedy is a tragedy plus time.

Burnett, Carol

47.

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

48.

Never say a humorous thing to a man who does not possess humor. He will always use it in evidence against you.

Tree, Sir Herbert Beerbohm

49.

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

50.

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

Gary, Roman