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.
If faith itself has different dresses worn,
What wonder modes in wit should take their turn?
To leave this keen encounter of our wits,
And fall somewhat into a slower method.
I am a fool, I know it; and yet, Heaven help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit.
A man does not please long when he has only one species of wit.
Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite.
Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh;
And 'tis no marvel he is so humorous.
WIT, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
You have a nimble wit; I think it was made of Atalanta's heels.
Wit is the clash and reconcilement of incongruities; the meeting of extremes round a corner.