Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

humor

Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society.

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

Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.

Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony.

Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.

The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.

From sixteen to twenty, all women, kept in humor by their hopes and by their attractions, appear to be good-natured.

Married people should not be quick to hear what is said by either when in ill humor.

Stand-up comics reflect less of a visual humor and more of a commentary.

Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.

There seems to be no lengths to which humorless people will not go to analyze humor. It seems to worry them.

Cynicism is humor in ill health.

If this humor be the safety of our race, then it is due largely to the infusion into the American people of the Irish brain.

The sense of humor has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter.

Humor is reason gone mad.

The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit.

People of humor are always in some degree people of genius.

The first glass is for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the forth for my enemies.

No mind is thoroughly well organized that is deficient in a sense of humor.

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

This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.

Men live by intervals of reason under the sovereignty of humor and passion.

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.

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

Next to power without honor, the most dangerous thing in the world is power without humor.

Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.

A joke is a very serious thing.

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

We do not take humor seriously enough.

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow there is no humor in Heaven.

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.

My stories are very somber, so I think I need the comic ingredient. Besides, life has so much humor.

Things can be funny only when we are in fun. When we're 'dead earnest,' humor is the only thing that is dead.

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

I don't think humor is forced upon my universe it's a part of it.

Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.

Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest earliest natural resources, which must be preserved at all cost.

Humor is a social lubricant that helps us get over some of the bad spots.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Robert Walker as Bruno was excellent. He had elegance and humor, and the proper fondness for his mother.

Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.

Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humor?

Total absence of humor renders life impossible.

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.

It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor.

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

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully.

A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

Women, as they grow older, rely more and more on cosmetics. Men, as they grow older, rely more and more on a sense of humor.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

Humor has been the balm of my life, but it's been reserved for those close to me, not part of the public Lana.

There are two insults no human being will endure: that he has no sense of humor, and that he has never known trouble.

The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance.

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.

Gags die, humor doesn't.

The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature.

I don't have a very quick sense of humor.

Humor is the most engaging cowardice.

Bad humor is an evasion of reality good humor is an acceptance of it.

Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.

Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge.

Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here.

All I know about humor is that I don't know anything about it.

When you say a friend has a sense of humor do you mean that he makes you laugh, or that he can make you laugh?

Wit is the lowest form of humor.

Humor is merely tragedy standing on its head with its pants torn.

Putting a little time aside for clean fun and good humor is very necessary to relieve the tensions of our time.

Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor it is the sign that he wants all the truth.

A sense of humor is a major defense against minor troubles.

I think I have always had a little humor.

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road.