Motivational Quotes

Humor

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

- La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

Best Quotes about Humor

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

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

Proverb, Latin

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

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

Dick Clark

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

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

Mel Brooks

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

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

Wilson, Flip

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

10.

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

Lewis Mumford

11.

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

Salma Hayek

12.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

13.

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

14.

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

Bill Nye

15.

Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten.

Sondheim, Stephen

16.

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

Eva Hoffman

17.

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

Jeph Jacques

18.

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

Warhol, Andy

19.

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

20.

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

21.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

22.

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

Charlie Chaplin

23.

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

24.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

25.

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

Fredrich

26.

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

27.

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

28.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Aristotle

29.

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

Horace

30.

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

Knox, Ronald

31.

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

32.

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

Johnson, Samuel

33.

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

Robert Benchley

34.

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

35.

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

Nelson, Lord

36.

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

Dwight D. Eisenhower

37.

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

38.

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

Seabury, David

39.

A rich man's joke is always funny.

Brown, Thomas Edward

40.

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

Twain, Mark

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.

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

A. Whitney Brown

43.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

44.

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

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of

45.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.