Humour Quotes

Cynicism is humour in ill health. (H. G. Wells)
Never say a humorous thing to a man who does not possess humour: he will always use it in evidence against you. View quote
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Humour is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him. View quote
Romain Gary
It is hard for power to enjoy or incorporate humour and satire in its system of control. View quote
Dario Fo
The whole Scotch nation hitherto has been void of wit and humour, and even incapable of relishing it. View quote
Horace Walpole
A sense of humour is a sense of proportion. View quote
Kahlil Gibran
Lord when you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book. View quote
Christopher Morley
I'm always impressed by confidence, kindness and a sense of humour. View quote
Tamara Mellon
...to speak of them out loud, to speak of their hunger and pain and loneliness and humour, to make them visible so that can not be ravaged in the dark without great consequence. View quote
Eve Ensler
For me, compatibility is a sense of humour, being able to laugh together; that is very important. View quote
Felicity Kendal
I think the most attractive thing is a sense of humour. If someone can make you laugh, you've gotten a lot out of the way. (Kiefer Sutherland)
Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) - neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice. View quote
William Hazlitt
Henry Kissinger is possessed of a truly superior intelligence, in addition to which he has two qualities which, unfortunately, many great men lack: he is able to listen and he has a very subtle sense of humour. View quote
Muhammad Reza Pahlavi
There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist, with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
People, particularly over-moralistic Americans, have often seen me as a pessimist and humourless to boot, yet I think I have an almost maniacal sense of humour. The problem is that it's rather deadpan. View quote
J. G. Ballard
I think that London is very much like that. I find there's humour in the air and people are interesting. And I think that it's a place which is constantly surprising. The worst thing about it? I think it can be smug and aggressive. View quote
Colin Firth
Humour has always been a self-defence mechanism for me. View quote
Brooke Shields
It is a defect of God's humour that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them. View quote
Tom Stoppard
We are specially designed to appeal to the sense of humour. View quote
Oscar Wilde
[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation. (John Buchan)
I'm very proud of being Jewish. It means I have a good work ethic, and you get Jewish humour and you're allowed to tell Jewish jokes. View quote
Daniel Radcliffe
Humour very often consists of shrewd perceptions about people. It's usually fun at someone's expense. Nowadays if you're funny at anybody's expense they run to the UN and say, "I must have an ombudsman to protect me." You hardly dare have a shrewd perception about anybody. View quote
Robertson Davies
I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that he has a sense of humour. View quote
William Ralph Inge
There is a kind of laughter that sickens the soul. Laughter when it is out of control: when it screams and stamps its feet, and sets the bells jangling in the next town. Laughter in all its ignorance and cruelty. Laughter with the seed of Satan in it. It tramples upon shrines; the belly-roarer. It roars, it yells, it is delirious: and yet it is as cold as ice. It has no humour. It is naked noise and naked malice. View quote
Mervyn Peake