Quotes on Humor
PLATO
“Humor is a mixed feeling of the soul.”
ARISTOTLE
“[Humor is when] the speaker says something unexpected, the truth of which is recognized.”
CICERO
“But of all this at nothing does one laugh more than at what is beyond expectations.”
KANT
“Laughter is an affection arising from sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing.”
SCHOPENHAUER
“The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through in some relation and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity.”
MILNER
“Within a single situation, and a single linguistic context, two universes collide, and it is this collision that makes many forms of humor possible.”
DREW
“By using humorous utterances, the speakers can avoid committing themselves too strongly to what they say.”
STEVEN HELLER
“Wit is the ability to control incongruous or nonsensical stimuli for purposes for tapping into deeper reservoirs of human experience.”
“True wit depends on the mastery of various forms of language.”
“Humor is relief from the anxiety the human condition generates.”
“Before the computer, the graphic designer was an organizer, aesthetic adviser, and conceptualist mostly in the print medium. Today the designer is an entertainer, and there are few things more entertaining than humor.”
“Design for pleasure is easy to describe. It is anything that makes the communication experience –the conveyance of information– enjoyable…. Edification involves being informed–awareness is the fruit–and serious information on political, social, and cultural issues is usually a pill best administered with a witty coating.”
“The Onion is design humor in its broadest definition. The publication and Web site employ a transparent format– In other words, it functions as what it is–A mock tabloid that enables the material to be conveyed without distraction or deflection.”
“A designer must know when to play and when to stop.”
“The most successful humor, though rooted in intelligence, is usually serendipitous.”
ON PUNS
“The visual pun is an image with two or more concurrent meanings that when combined yield a single message.”
“Eli Kince states that puns have a ‘humorous effect’ and an ‘analytical effect.’”
“The pun is humorous when a certain cleverness and surprise is created.”
JAMES VICTORE
“If not for humor–The misery and wickedness of the world would be unbearable.”
MARK FOX
“Wit is the sugar that precedes the medicine.”
MIRIAM BOSSARD & AMY UNIKEWICZ
“Wit and humor are beautiful because they touch on shared experiences: common knowledge or common sense make someone able to understand why something is witty. They allow us to communicate difficult or complex messages in an easy, digestable way, offering a new context and therefore a more objective view on matters.”
PETER BLEGUARD
“What makes witty? Redundancy, brevity, sound effects. Clash of static text and symbolic motion.”
SCOTT STOWELL
“Humor is the best way to make people think about things they hadn’t planned on thinking about– It’s a way of confronting and avoiding ideas at the same time.”
PAULA SCHER
“Honesty and surprise make design funny.”
SALVATORE ATTARDO
“Currently, studies lean more towards the study of humor as an enabling mechanism for thought.”
“Humor has a self-reflexive quality, that it implies its own self-consciousness.”
“Humor is a playful linguistic mode, but play is not humorous per se.”
