Quotes about humor

He adjudicated the case in a manner I still find perplexing, but which must have been equitable, since it pleased no one.

I have transcended that phase in my intellectual growth where I discover humour in simple freakishness. What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since wherever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapours rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter.

“Are you yourself a Christian?”

The young man made a negative sign. “The concepts of religion baffle me.”

“This inscrutability is perhaps not unintentional,” said the ex-priest. “It gives endless employment to dialecticians who otherwise might become public charges or, at very worst, swindlers and tricksters.”

They call me a renegade.

The epithet is inaccurate and undeserved. I cannot be faithless to a cause which I never have endorsed. Indeed, I am absolutely faithful to the only cause I espouse, which is my own welfare. I take pride in this unswerving loyalty!

“I wonder, sir, if you’d be good enough to advise me.”

“Certainly, within the limits of discretion,” said Eubanq. “I should warn you, however, that free advice is usually not worth its cost.”

“Still, moderation, I beg of all of you!”

“But not too much of it!” Dobbo called out. “We’d be defeating only ourselves. Moderation must be practiced in moderation.”

“While we were gone someone broke into my case and stole most of my things.”

The news seemed to drive Skorlet close to the limits of self-control. “And what do you expect?” she snapped in an unpleasantly harsh voice. “This is an egalistic country; why should you have more than anyone else?”

“I have been over-egalized,” said Jantiff drily. “To the effect that I now have less than anyone else.”

“It goes to demonstrate,” said Reith, “that you can’t judge a man by the table he sets.”

Cauch asked shrewdly, “How then can a man judge his fellows? For example, what is the basis of your calculation?”

“Only one thing I know for certain,” said Reith. “First thoughts are always wrong.”

There is no reason why the project should not go easily and smoothly except for the innate perversity of circumstances.

“As always there is someone to hold a tight hand on the purse strings—usually the most affluent of the persons in authority.”

“This is how they become affluent.”

My own concepts in this regard are easy and clear, and I am sure that the word “simplistic” will be used by my critics. These folk are callow and turgid of intellect; I am reassured by their howls and yelps.

Motto of the Institute: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; a great deal of knowledge is disaster, which detractors of the Institute scornfully paraphrase to: Somebody else’s ignorance is bliss.