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Quotes about humor

113 quotes from 83 people

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Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The Idler (1758–1760), No. 58 (26 May 1759)
The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious.
James Joyce1882–1941Ulysses (1922), Part II, Episode 9In context
There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Aubrey Menen, Rama Retold (1954), p. 231
- Laughter
All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land.
Jack Kerouac1922–1969Pomes All Sizes (1992)
- Laughter
You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.
Stephen Kingborn 1947
- Laughter
No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.
Milan Kundera1929–2023The Joke (1967), Pt. 6, ch. 18
- Laughter
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
- Politics
If man had more of a sense of humor, things might have turned out differently.
Stanisław Lem1921–2006Solaris (1961), Ch. 12: “The Dreams”, p. 184
Laughter is a basic human need, along with love, and food, and an HBO subscription.
Julia Louis-Dreyfusborn 1961Mark Twain Prize Acceptance Speech (2018)
- Comedy
- Laughter
When we can begin to take our failures nonseriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.
Katherine Mansfield1888–1923Journal entry (October 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)
- Failure
- Laughter
Chaos in the midst of chaos isn’t funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.
Steve Martinborn 1945
Kids like my act because I’m wearing nose glasses. Adults like my act because there’s a guy who thinks putting on nose glasses is funny.
Steve Martinborn 1945
Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.
Steve Martinborn 1945
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 4, p. 17
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