Motivational Quotes

Humor

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

- Proverb, Latin

Best Quotes about Humor

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

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

Seabury, David

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

Strachey, Lionel

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Rosten, Leo

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

Bill Nye

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

Twain, Mark

Even the gods love jokes.

Plato

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

Colton, Charles Caleb

Comedy is a tragedy plus time.

Burnett, Carol

10.

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

Eco, Umberto

11.

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

12.

If you're at school and you're not that bright or good-looking or popular or whatever, and one day you say something and someone laughs, well, you sort of grab onto it, don't you? you think, well I run funny and I've got this stupid big face and big thighs and no-one fancies me, but at least I can make people laugh. And It's such a nice feeling, making someone laugh, that maybe you get a bit reliant on it. Like, if you're not funny then you're not... anything.

David Nicholls

13.

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

Williamson, Nicol

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Nelson, Lord

17.

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

Dick Clark

18.

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

19.

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

James Thurber

20.

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

Wilson, Flip

21.

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

22.

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

23.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Peter Ustinov

24.

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

Clark, Dick

25.

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

26.

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

Mel Brooks

27.

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

Johnson, Samuel

28.

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.

29.

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

Horace

30.

WARNING: Humor may be hazardous to your illness.

Katz, Ellie

31.

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

Horace Walpole

32.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

33.

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

Fredrich

34.

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

35.

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

Kathryn L. Nelson

36.

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

Maclaine, Shirley

37.

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

Bruce, Lenny

38.

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

Robert Benchley

39.

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

A. Whitney Brown

40.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Aristotle

41.

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

42.

What some people invent the rest enlarge.

Swift, Jonathan

43.

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

44.

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

Jeph Jacques

45.

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

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

46.

Fortune and humor govern the world.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

47.

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.