Minor Dictionary
of Humorous Quotations

Salutations | Science | Scotland and Scots | Sex | Sex Equality | Showing off | Sin | Smoking | Sociology | Sports | Statistics | Success |

Our customary salutation "Good Day" is a vestige of an agricultural society where people were asking for good weather. I expect city dwellers eventually to greet one another with the phrase "Low Prices". Walter Hamilton

Accidents cause history.

Air is water with holes in it.

All science is either physics or stamp collecting. E. Rutherford

A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.

An archaeologist is a man whose career lies in ruins.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. Lazarus Long

And this is a table, ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the world. Michael Frayn

A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. George Wald

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. Albert Einstein

Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. Mickey Mouse

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. Tennessee Williams

Handy Guide to modern science:

1. If it's green or it wriggles, it's biology.
2. If it stinks, it's chemistry.
3. If it doesn't work,. it's physics.

How do you tell the sex of a chromosome? You pull down its genes.

Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.

If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by the page number.

Klein bottle for sale... inquire within.

No experiment is ever a complete failure: it can always serve as a bad example.

On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague: "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." W. Paul

Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds.

Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. Mike Adams

A former speaker, House of Commons: "Let us not forget that many a brave heart beats beneath the kilt of the Cameron Highlander." Arthur J. Lewis, MP

I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!?

Just when we thought we knew everything there is to know about sex, we went to see a Swedish film. Now we are starting all over again. H. Boyle

Equality of sexes will be achieved when, on observing a bald-headed woman, a man is heard to remark: "My, how distinguished she looks!"

The war between the sexes can never be brought to a successful conclusion because there's too much fraternizing with the enemy.

A highbrow is one who, when he sees a sausage, thinks of Picasso.

A most intense young man,
A soulful-eyed young man,
An ultra-poetical, super-aesthetical
Out-of-the-way young man!
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert

He is a member of the effluent society. Stinking rich.

The fellow who thinks he knows it all is especially annoying for those of us who do. Peter Holmes

After reading memorial stones in a cemetery, you wonder where they bury the sinners.

I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. Hunter S. Thompson

He was so worried when he read somewhere that smoking could cause cancer he gave up reading.

It is anti-social to pass your cigarettes around: everyone prefers his own brand of suicide. Shirley Conlan

The cigarette warnings had made people nervous. I heard of one bank robber who passed a note to a teller which read: "Give me all your money or I'll blow smoke into your face." Ray Fire

Sociology: the study of people who do not need to be studied by people who do. E.S. Turner

Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history, dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive umpire. What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as mine-better, probably, because you haven't had four beers. Dave Barry/p>

My wife happens to be very big in karate circles. You know those fellows who can break three boards with one chop? Who do you think cooks the chop? Robert Oiten

The football season is the only time of the year when a man can walk down the street with a blonde on one arm and a blanket on the other without encountering raised eyebrows. M.H. Beuchat

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; and when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity. G.B. Shaw

Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes.

Statistics are like a bikini... what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.

Statistics are like a bikini... what they reveal may be interesting, but what they conceal is fascinating.

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

It isn't enough to succeed. Others must fail. Gore Vidal

Nothing recedes like a success. Walter Winchell

Success is making more money to pay the taxes you wouldn't pay if you didn't make so much money.