Humourous Quotations
or quotes which are humourous...
"If
they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they
can sure make something out of you."
- Muhammad Ali (1942-)
please also have a look at my favourite meaningful quotations.
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z
"Wit is educated insolence."
- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
"A positive attitude will not solve all
your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the
effort."
- Herm Albright
"Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other
up."
- Muhammad Ali (1942-)
"What's on your mind, if you'll
forgive the overstatement?"
- Fred Allen (1894-1956); American comedian
"How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in
the roller of an electric typewriter?"
- Woody Allen
"I don't want to achieve immortality
through my work, I want to achieve it through not
dying."
- Woody Allen
"Don't knock masturbation, it's sex
with someone I love ."
- Woody Allen; from 'Annie Hall' 1977
"I believe that sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five,
it's fantastic."
- Woody Allen
"Sex without love is an empty experience,
but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best."
- Woody Allen
"I'd call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse."
- Woody Allen
"I lost closer friends than him the last time I was deloused."
- Rowan Atkinson, "Blackadder"
"I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of
liking them."
- Jane Austen
"It is the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the
time."
- Tallulah Bankhead (1903-1968)
"The quickest way to a man's heart is through his chest."
- Roseanne Barr
"When I am dead, I hope it may be said: 'His sins were scarlet but his
books were read.'"
- Hillaire Belloc
"Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-?1914); American writer and
critic
"The covers of this book are too far
apart."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-?1914); American writer and critic
*A little side step – I strongly recommend Ambrose Bierce’s 1881 “Devil’s Dictionary” – a hilarious book, and highly quotable
"Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them."
- Dion Boucicault
(c.1820-1890) ; Irish dramatist and actor
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy
is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
- Mel Brooks
"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I
hate plants."
- A. Whitney Brown, American comedian
"Thank God I'm an atheist."
- Luis Bunuel; Spanish
surrealist film-maker
"When I was a boy the
- George Burns (1896-1996); American Comedian and
centenarian
"Nice to be here? At my age it's nice to be anywhere."
- George Burns (1896-1996); American Comedian and centenarian
"The secret of a good sermon is to have
a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as
possible."
- George Burns (1896-1996); American Comedian and centenarian
"First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull
your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down."
- George Burns (1896-1996); American Comedian and centenarian
"I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single
sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers."
- Albert Camus
"You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a
kind word alone."
- Al Capone
"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the
world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that but
not with all those flies and death and stuff."
- Mariah Carey
"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why
I have one."
- Cato the Elder (234-149 BC); Roman historian
"Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress. When I get tired
of one I spend the night with the other."
- Anton Chekhov (1860-1904); Russian physician, author and dramatist
"An archaeologist is the best husband a
woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her."
- Agatha Christie
"History will be kind to me, for I intend
to write it."
- Winston Churchill (1874-1965); Prime Minister of
"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my
Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
- Winston Churchill (1874-1965); Prime Minister of
"A modest man, who has much to be modest about."
- Winston Churchill, on Clement Atlee, his successor as Prime Minister of
Britain
"He looked at foreign affairs
through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe"
- Winston Churchill, on Neville Chamberlain, his predecessor as Prime
Minister of Britain
"We all are worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm."
- Winston Churchill (1874-1965); Prime Minister of
Lady Astor to Churchill: "Winston, if you were my husband I would flavour your coffee with poison"
Churchill: "Madam, if I were your husband, I should drink it"
Bessie Braddock to Churchill: "Winston, your drunk!"
Churchill: "Bessie, you're ugly, and tomorrow morning I shall be
sober"
"The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be
when you kill them."
- William Clayton
"You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles
a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she
is."
- Ellen DeGeneres
"What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others."
- Diogenes the Cynic; Greek Philosopher
"There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies
and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881); Prime Minister of
"I don't practice what I preach because
I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."
- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs (online creation: see www.subgenius.com)
"I told the Inland Revenue I didn't owe
them a penny because I lived near the seaside."
- Ken Dodd; English comedian
"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
- Thomas Edison
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm
not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein
"I never think of the future - it comes soon enough."
- Albert Einstein
"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a
computer."
- Paul Ehrlich
"If you lend someone 20 dollars and never see that person again, it's
probably worth it."
- Sam Ewing; American writer
"Man is what he eats."
- Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872); German philosopher
"Anything worth having is worth cheating
for."
- W.C. Fields (1879-1946)
"I am free of all prejudices. I hate
everyone equally."
- W.C. Fields (1879-1946)
"I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied
electricity at the state prison."
- WC Fields (1879-1946)
"The great question - which I have not been able to answer - is, 'What
does a woman want?'"
- Sigmund Freud
"She's not only kept her lovely figure, she's added so much to it."
- Bob Fosse
"A man in love is incomplete until he's married. Then he's finished."
- Zsa Zsa Gabor
"I do wish I could tell you my age but
it's impossible. It keeps changing all the time."
- Greer Garson (1904-96); American actress
"I think it would be a good
idea."
- Mohandas Karamchand
"Mahatma" Gandhi (1869-1948), when asked what he thought of Western Civilisation
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
- Bill Gates (1955 - date), in 1981
"Silence is argument carried out by
other means."
- Ernesto “Che” Guevara (1928-1967);
Argentine revolutionary
"Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people
have mediocrity thrust upon them."
- Joseph Heller (1923-), from "Catch 22"
"He had decided to live forever or die
in the attempt."
- Joseph Heller (1923-), from "Catch 22"
"It's funny the way most people love
the dead. Once you're dead, you're made for life."
- Jimi Hendrix
"Mom & Pop were just
a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I
was three."
- Billie Holiday
"I don't feel old. I don't feel anything till noon. That's when it's time
for my nap."
- Bob Hope
"I'm not a paranoid derranged millionaire. Goddamit, I'm a billionaire."
- Howard Hughes
"It is always the best policy to
tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar."
- Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) ; American writer
"No member of our generation who wasn't a Communist or a dropout in the
thirties is worth a damn."
- Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973), 1960
"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."
- John F. Kennedy
"They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me
sad that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days."
- Garrison Kielor
"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one
hundred percent."
- RD Laing (1927-89); American psychologist
"USA Today has come out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four
people make up 75 percent of the population."
- David Letterman
"You're not drunk if you can lie on
the floor without holding on."
- Joe E Lewis; American comedian
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
"Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and
50% what people think you've got."
- Sophia Loren
"Many people see Eva Peron as either a saint or the incarnation of Satan.
That means I definitely can identify with her."
- Madonna
"Sure, I'm crazy. But that used to mean something. Now, everybody's
crazy."
- Charles Manson
"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an
exception."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as
members."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"Either he's dead or my watch has stopped."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"A man's only as old as the woman he
feels."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"If I held you any closer I would be on the other side of you."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"Military justice is to justice what military music is to music."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"Those are my principles. If you don't
like them I have others."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too
dark to read."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"Women should be obscene and not heard."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"She got her looks from her father: He's a plastic surgeon."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my
pajamas I'll never know."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an
idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you, he really is an
idiot."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
"Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have
nothing whatever to do with it."
- Somerset Maugham
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American
public."
- H. L. Mencken
"My school days were the happiest days of my life; which should give you
some indication of the misery I've endured over the past twenty-five
years."
- Paul Merton; English Comedian
"Money can't buy you friends, but you get a better class of enemy."
- Spike Milligan
"I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I
thought, why should I? He never reads any of
mine."
- Spike Milligan
"My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic."
- Spike Milligan
"I have the body of an eighteen year old. I keep it in the fridge."
- Spike Milligan
"All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy."
- Spike Milligan
"It's not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on."
- Marilyn Monroe
"When I don't take a decision, it's not that I don't think about it. I
think about it and take a decision not to take a decision."
- P.V. Narasimha Rao, former Indian prime-minister, defending his reputation
for indecisiveness.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their
home."
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
"The optimist thinks that this is
the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it."
- J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967); 'Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists',
1951.
"On the whole human beings want to be
good, but not too good and not quite all the time."
- George Orwell (1903-1950), collected essays.
"The Middle Eastern states aren't nations,
they're quarrels with borders."
- PJ O'Rouke (1947-date); American political
commentator
"When did I realize I was God? Well,
I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself."
- Peter O'Toole
"All the troubles of men are caused by one single thing, which is their
inability to stay quietly in a room."
- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) ;
French mathematician and writer
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm
for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
- Terry Pratchett
"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."
- Elvis Presley (1935-1977) ; American musician
"When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is."
- Ayn Rand
"What makes him think a middle aged actor, who's played with a chimp,
could have a future in politics?"
- Ronald Reagan, on Clint Eastwood's bid to become mayor of
"I'm Jewish. I don't work out. If
God had wanted us to bend over, He would have put diamonds on the floor."
- Joan Rivers
"People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much
say little."
- Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) ; French
political philosopher, from "Emile, ou traite de l'education", 1762
"No self-respecting fish would want to
be wrapped in that kind of paper."
- Mike Royko on the
"The only possible interpretation of any
research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't."
- Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
"He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by
death."
- Saki
"The answer to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a beer bottle,
they're on TV."
- Homer Simpson
"We have not lost faith, but we have
transferred it from God to the Medical profession."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"At times it is wiser to remain silent
and be considered a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"She had lost the art of conversation
but not, unfortunately, the power of speech."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"The English have no respect for
their language, and will not teach their children to speak it."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"Those who can do,
those who can't teach."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"We must be thoroughly democratic and patronize
everybody without distinction of class."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend
- if you have one."
- George Bernard Shaw, in a note to Winston Churchill
Churchill's reply to above:
"Impossible to be
present for the first performance. Will attend second - if
there is one."
"Many people are
surprised to hear that we have comedians in
- Yakov Smirnoff; Russian comedian
"The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be
pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues."
- Elizabeth Taylor
"If you pick up a starving dog and
make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference
between a dog and a man."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"Always acknowledge a fault. This will
throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit
more."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"The surest protection against temptation
is cowardice."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"The report of my death was an
exaggeration."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910);
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on
society."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"Last week I stated that this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen.
I have since been visited by her sister and now wish to withdraw that
statement."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've
done it thousands of times."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"Only presidents, editors and people with tapeworm have the right to use
the editorial 'we'."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
"A triumph of the embalmers art"
- Gore Vidal, on Ronald Reagan
"Ice-cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn't illegal."
- Voltaire
"I have never made but one prayer to
God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God
granted it."
- Voltaire
"The purpose of modern highways is
to get you from A to B quickly enough to give you time the other end to wonder
why you went so fast."
- Derek Walcott (1930 - date) ; Nobel prize-winning
St Lucian poet
"A straight line is the most boring
distance between two points."
- Derek Walcott (1930 - date) ; Nobel prize-winning
St Lucian poet
"An intellectual is someone who has
found something more interesting than sex."
- Edgar Wallace (1875-1932); British writer and journalist
"Who the hell wants to hear actors
talk?"
- H.M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927
"When I'm good I'm very, very good but
when I'm bad I'm better."
- Mae West
"Give a man a free hand and he'll
run it all over you."
- Mae West
"Sex is an emotion in motion."
- Mae West
"Good girls go to heaven, but bad girls get to go everywhere."
- Mae West
"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so
intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"I can resist everything except
temptation."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900); from Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892
"As yet, Bernard Shaw hasn't become prominent enough to have any enemies,
but none of his friends like him."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that
is not being talked about."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900); from the Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
"Some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they
go."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"I have nothing to declare except my genius."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"She looked as if she'd been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to
say when."
- PG Wodehouse
"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like
an idiot."
- Steven Wright; American comedian
A few last words...
"I desire to go to hell and not to
heaven. In the former place I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and
princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles."
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) - last words.
"Go on, get out! Last words are for
fools who haven't said enough!"
- Karl Marx (1818-1883) ; on being asked for his
last words on his death bed.
And finally...
"It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims."
- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
And using that last as an excuse, I won't attempt to add any more of my own!
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