Inspirational Quotes on Humor

“Wouldst thou both eat thy cake and have it?”

“I hardly seem yet," returned Charles Darnay, "to belong to this world again." "I don't wonder at it; it's not so long since you were pretty far advanced on your way to another.”

“The men who made the joke saw something deep which they could not express except by something silly and emphatic.”

“Can I view thee panting, lying On thy stomach, without sighing; Can I unmoved see thee dying On a log Expiring frog!”

“He is a man, I think," he said, "who cares for nothing but a joke. He is a dangerous man." Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some macaroni to his mouth. "Dangerous!" he said. "You don't know little Quin, sir!" "Every man is dangerous," said the old man, without moving, "Who cares only for one thing. I was once dangerous myself.”

“The joke is generally in the oddest way the truth and yet not the fact.”

“What is the matter with you?" asked Shcherbatsky. "Nothing much, but there is little to be happy about in this world." "Little? You'd better come with me to Paris instead of going to some Mulhausen or other. You'll see how jolly it will be!" "No, I have done with that; it is time for me to die." "That is a fine thing!" said Shcherbatsky, laughing. "I am only just beginning to live." "Yes, I thought so too till lately; but now I know that I shall soon die." Levin was saying what of late he had really been thinking. He saw death and the apprroach of death in everything; but the work he had begun interested him all the more. After all, he had to live his life somehow, til death came. Everything for him was wrapped in darkness; but just because of the darkness, feeling his work to be the only thread to guide him through the darkness, he seized upon it and clung to it with all his might.”

“Why?" asked the horse. "I'm a free Narnian. And why should I talk slaves' and fools' talk? I don't want him to live forever, and I know he won't live forever whether I want him to or not.”

“Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, 'By jove! I'm being humble!', and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt—and so on, through as many stages a you please. But don't try this too long, for fear you may awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.”

“Polonius: My lord, I will take my leave of you. Hamlet: You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal...”

“Good for you Woods. You're not as dumb as you look. Come to think of it, no one's as dumb as you look.”

“...And a cool four thousand, Pip!" I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature of the four thousand pounds, but it appeared to make the sum of money more to him, and he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool.”

“Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.”

“My sister having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going.”

“The modern materialist often makes it simply: "Do what you like," and then rushes off to ask his psychoanalyst when he no longer likes anything.”

“Easy in but not easily out, as the lobster said in the lobster pot!”

“The air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea.”

“The silly sentimentalists of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! We hate Rights as we hate Wrongs. We have abolished Right and Wrong. And Right and Left, said Syme with a simple eagerness, I hope you will abolish them too. They are much more troublesome to me.”

“He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.”

“BUSY old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?”