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Quotes about humor

113 quotes from 83 people

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And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.1809–1894“The Height of the Ridiculous”, Poems (1836)
- Writing
Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.
Anatole France1844–1924The Literary Life (1888-1892), Series III: Rabelais
- Wisdom
Humour is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.
Virginia Woolf1882–1941The Common Reader (1925)
It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936All Things Considered (1908), “Spiritualism”
- Religion
A God who cannot smile, could not have created this humorous universe.
Sri Aurobindo1872–1950Bhakti
- God
I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.
William Congreve1670–1729The Old Bachelor (1693), Act II, scene vii
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit…
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965“The Creative Impulse”, in Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular (1931)
- Quotations
Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.
Montesquieu1689–1755Pensées Diverses
If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
Joseph Addison1672–1719The Spectator (1711–1714), No. 494 (26 September 1712)
- Laughter
We claim no respectability. There’s no status I would not surrender for a joke. So we don’t have to defend anything.
Stephen Colbertborn 1964Rolling Stone interview (31 October 2006)
Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the Devil; for which reason I have, long since, as good as renounced it.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), Bk. II, ch. 4.
- Talking
There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.
Dorothy Parker1893–1967Interview, The Paris Review (Summer 1956)
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
W. H. Auden1907–1973The Dyer’s Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
- Laughter
- Love
The salvation of the world depends on the men who will not take evil good-humouredly, and whose laughter destroys the fool instead of encouraging him.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Quintessence Of Ibsenism (1891; 1913)
- Good & Evil
- Laughter
Laughter, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
- Laughter