Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?

The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‚O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.‘ And God granted it.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

Comedy’s about opening up and being unique, but to a point where the audience can relate to what you’re saying.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.

Most of the stuff I do on the show comes out of me just trying to make my friends laugh.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.

Teach a parrot the terms ‚supply and demand‘ and you’ve got an economist.

‚Educational‘ refers to the process, not the object. Although, come to think of it, some of my teachers could easily have been replaced by a cheeseburger.

No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

If I ever had twins, I’d use one for parts.

The middle class is so funny, it’s the class I know best, and it’s the class where you find the most pretension, so that’s what makes the middle classes so funny.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.

Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

If at first you don’t succeed… so much for skydiving.

My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a quaker.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

An onion can make people cry but there’s never been a vegetable that can make people laugh.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.

Since the very beginning, Emeril’s had a sense of humor about me calling him names and poking fun at him.

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.

Everything I say is a joke. I am a joke myself.

I like George Carlin’s jokes. I like his humor. He’s one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.

The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far – the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We’re obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

If you shoot at mimes, should you use a silencer?

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

My age is very insignificant to me. I don’t think about it, but the world does. The world likes young people in general.

When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.

Humorists can never start to take themselves seriously. It’s literary suicide.

It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.

It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one.

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

When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child… eventually.

Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

There is too much government today. We’ve got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.

All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Most people are happy being average. Most are happy being faceless in a sea of faces.

As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.

As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.

The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.

I am a dangerous man when turned loose with a typewriter.