Motivational Quotes

Humor

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

Best Quotes about Humor

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

Herold, Don

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

Nelson, Lord

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

James Thurber

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

Mel Brooks

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

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Zimmermann, Johann Georg

10.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

11.

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

Joubert, Joseph

12.

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

Gary, Roman

13.

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

14.

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

A. Whitney Brown

15.

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

16.

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

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of

17.

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

Horace

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

A poor joke must invent its own laughter.

Proverb, Latin

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.

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

Rourke, Constance

25.

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

Jeph Jacques

26.

Good taste and humor are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore.

Muggeridge, Malcolm

27.

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

James Thurber

28.

Comedy is nothing more than tragedy deferred.

Pico Iyer

29.

The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh

Reiner, Carl

30.

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.

31.

What some people invent the rest enlarge.

Swift, Jonathan

32.

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

33.

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

Martin, Steve

34.

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

Wilson, Flip

35.

To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.

Burgess, (Frank) Gelett

36.

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

Dick Clark

37.

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

38.

Even the gods love jokes.

Plato

39.

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

Knox, Ronald

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.

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

Bruce, Lenny

42.

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

Charlie Chaplin

43.

Comedy is a tragedy plus time.

Burnett, Carol

44.

Comedy is the last refuge of the nonconformist mind.

Seldes, Gilbert

45.

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

Eva Hoffman

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Johnson, Samuel

49.

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

50.

Humor is also a way of saying something serious.

T. S. Eliot