Quotes about humor
113 quotes from 83 people
Josh Billings1818–1885Josh Billings’ Old Farmer’s Allminax, “January 1871” (1870)Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745The Battle of the Books, preface (1704)Parodies and caricatures are the most penetrating of criticisms.
Aldous Huxley1894–1963Point Counter Point (1928), Ch. 28
William Hazlitt1778–1830Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)
Jon Stewartborn 1962The Eric Garner Grand Jury Decision, December 4, 2014It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.
Sydney Smith1771–1845Lady Holland’s Memoir (1855), Vol. I, ch. 2, pp. 31–32A good comedian can say things funny and other guys just say funny things.
Fred Allen1894–1956Attributed by Robert Lemke in The Sunday Press (Binghamton, NY), “Rock ‘n Roll ‘Musically Horrid” Says Ex-2-a-Dayer,” pg. 2-C, col. 1 (9 August 1959)Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Tom Lehrer1928–2025On the awarding of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger, and Lê Ðức Thọ- FCFrank Moore Colby1865–1925Frank Moore Colby, (1926) The Colby Essays, Vol. 1., “Satire and Teeth”. Reported in Robert Andrews, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, Columbia University Press. (1993) . p. 431.
Salvador Dalí1904–1989Diary of a Genius (1964), p. 12Stupid people, people who do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and self-conceited.
William Makepeace Thackeray1811–1863“Mr. Brown’s Letters to His Nephew: On Love, Marriage, Men and Women”, p. 109.
Václav Havel1936–2011Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 2: Writing for the Stage
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 4, p. 17- William Hazlitt1778–1830Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900Human, All Too Human (1878), Aphorism 202, tr. R. J. Hollingdale