Funny Quotes
Funny is a tone rather than a subject, and the older writers do better in it than you might expect. Shakespeare has the most entries, followed by Alexander Pope, with Swift, Thomas Fuller and Will Rogers not far behind. Some of the oldest jokes here are still the best: the critic John Dennis, quoted in a magazine in 1781, said that a man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket.
There is also some more recent material. Jon Stewart’s remark about comedy being tragedy plus time, from The Daily Show in 1999, is here with its language intact. Two lines are flagged as misattributed: Pope’s couplet about knocking on a head with nobody at home, and the one about jesters proving prophets, credited to Joseph Addison.
The more one suffers, the more, I believe, has one a sense for the comic.
Satire should, like a polished razor keen,
Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.
A good old man, sir: he will be talking, as they say, When the age is in, the wit is out.
A good satirist never pauses to worry about angering the citizenry.
One may say that his wit shines at the expense of his memory.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
Wit is as infinite as love, and a deal more lasting in its qualities.
I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
Comedy is an escape, not from the truth but from despair; a narrow escape into faith.
No time to break jests when the heartstrings are about to be broken.