Humour Quotes - Page 13

• Barcza is the most versatile player in the opening. He sometimes plays P-KKt3 on the first, sometimes on the second, sometimes on the third, and sometimes only on the fourth move.

  Harry Golombek

  Moving, Player, Chess

  4 Copy quote

• My opponent is Short and the match will be short.

  Garry Kasparov

  Opponents, Chess

  4 Copy quote

• A male scorpion is stabbed to death after mating. In chess, the powerful queen often does the same to the king without giving him the satisfaction of a lover.

  Gregor Piatigorsky

  Kings, Queens, Powerful

  8 Copy quote

• My opponent left a glass of whisky 'en prise' and I took it 'en passant'.

  Joseph Henry Blackburne

  Glasses, Opponents, Chess

  12 Copy quote

• GRAVITATION, n. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportioned to the quantity of matter they contain-the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B, makes B the proof of A.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Science, Illustration, Lovely

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.100, University of Georgia Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Prudent people are very happy; 'tis an exceeding fine thing, that's certain, but I was born without it, and shall retain to my day of Death the Humour of saying what I think.

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  Thinking, People, Prudent

  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1967). “1708-1720”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Dog, Science, Medicine

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.141, 谷月社

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• POTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific-and without science we are as the snakes and toads.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Country, Drinking, Science

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2484, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Science, Students, Medical

  The Devil's Dictionary

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Hope, Dog, Health

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.181, University of Georgia Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Liars, Science, Imagination

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.96, 谷月社

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Etna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Block, Wine, Science

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.26, University of Georgia Press

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is well-known what a middleman is: he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Business, Party, Men

  Benjamin Disraeli, Edmund Gosse, Robert Arnot (1904). “The Works of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, Embracing Novels, Romances, Plays, Poems, Biography, Short Stories and Great Speeches: Coningsby, v. 2. Selected speeches”

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something that in an ethical society would not need to exist. If people could deal with one another honestly, they would not need agents.

  Raymond Chandler

  Funny, Men, People

  7 Copy quote

• But to the particular species of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first book which they read, some early conversation which they heard, or some accident which excited ardour and emulation.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Men, Excellence

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “The Lives of the Poets: A Selection”, p.396, OUP Oxford

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've always been an optimist and I believe laughter is a wonderful thing

  Alice Herz-Sommer

  Laughter, Believe, Wonderful

  8 Copy quote

• LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Faith, Science, Hands

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.124, 谷月社

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think that London is very much like that. I find there's humour in the air and people are interesting. And I think that it's a place which is constantly surprising. The worst thing about it? I think it can be smug and aggressive.

  Colin Firth

  Thinking, Air, People

  7 Copy quote

• To run this business ... you need ... optimism, humanism, enthusiasm, intuition, curiosity, love, humour, magic and fun, and that secret ingredient-euph oria.

  Anita Roddick

  Running, Fun, Optimism

  8 Copy quote

• MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Science, Clothes, Dinner

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.164, University of Georgia Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Science, Machines, Reason

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.81, 谷月社

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• As Aboriginal people we have always retained our resilience, our humour and our cultural integrity - we will always retain our dreams and a vision for the future for our people.

  Ken Wyatt

  Dream, Integrity, Future

  30 Copy quote

• LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side of human nature, calls it "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time considered the seat of life; hence its name- liver, the thing we live with.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Heart, Science, Emotional

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.152, University of Georgia Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.

  Khalil Gibran

  Proportion

  Khalil Gibran “The New Frontier and Sand and Foam”, Library of Alexandria

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Faeries are not fantasy, but a connection to reality. Faeries are irrational, poetic, absurd, and very, very wise. Faeries say there is nonsense in dogma, and sense in nonsense. Faeries express themselves with high seriousness and low humour. Faeries are resistant to all definitions.

  Brian Froud

  Wise, Reality, Connections

  28 Copy quote