Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

Emotion is the surest arbiter of a poetic choice, and it is the priest of all supreme unions in the mind.

Patriotism is one of the unalterable facts of man's nature. It is a virtue if you like it, and a vice if you don't like it.

Laughter is, after speech, the chief thing that holds society together.

The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.

A joke is not a thing but a process, a trick you play on the listener's mind. You start him off toward a plausible goal, and then by a sudden twist you land him nowhere at all or just where he didn't expect to go.

Robert Benchley has a style that is weak and lies down frequently to rest.

Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully.

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

A smile is the universal welcome.

It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor.

Laughter puts your brain, your central nervous system and your whole being into a state of free play.

The worst enemy of human hope is not brute facts, but men of brains who will not face them.

People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo.

History is not an escalator.

A liberal mind is a mind that is able to imagine itself believing anything.

I don't know why it is we are in such a hurry to get up when we fall down. You might think we would lie there and rest for a while.

A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is a joke.

Humor is a kind of emotional chaos told about calmly and quietly in retrospect.There is always a laugh in the utterly familiar.

If one were loyal to one's nation only because it was good and true ... one would not be loyal to any nation but to truth and goodness. The idea of patriotism would have no place either in our dictionaries or our lives.