A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

George V 1865–1936 British king

I left England when I was four because I found out I could never be King.

Bob Hope 1903–2003 American comedian

notice on a playbill sent to her former lover, the Duke of Clarence, refusing his demand for repayment of her allowance:

Positively no money refunded after the curtain has risen.

Mrs Jordan 1761–1816 Irish-born actress

My children are not royal, they just happen to have the Queen as their aunt.

Princess Margaret 1930–2002 British princess

on the abdication of her son, Edward VIII:

Really, this might be Rumania.

Queen Mary 1867–1953 British Queen Consort

Such an active lass. So outdoorsy. She loves nature in spite of what it did to her.

Bette Midler 1945– American actress, on Princess Anne

I declare this thing open—whatever it is.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh 1921– husband of Elizabeth II, opening an annexe at Vancouver City Hall

The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong.

Alexander Pope 1688–1744 English poet

on Charles, Prince of Wales:

He’s so gay. He can’t wait for his mother to die so he can be Queen.

Joan Rivers 1933–2014 American comedienne

Here lies a great and mighty king

Whose promise none relies on;

He never said a foolish thing,

Nor ever did a wise one.

Lord Rochester 1647–80 English poet, proposed epitaph for Charles II; see Charles at royalty above

He speaks to Me as if I was a public meeting.

Victoria

1819–1901 British queen, of Gladstone

to Edward IV whom she later married:

My liege, I know I am not good enough to be your queen, but I am far too good to become your mistress.

Elizabeth Woodville c.1437–92 English queen of Edward IV

I’m doing pretty well considering. In the past, when anyone left the Royal family they had you beheaded.

Sarah, Duchess of York 1959– 

Satisfaction and Discontent

when asked what was the best day of her life:

It was a night.

Brigitte Bardot 1934– French actress

Clark Gable (as Rhett Butler):

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Sidney Howard 1891–1939 American dramatist and screenwriter, in the film Gone with the Wind (based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell)

When fortune empties her chamberpot on your head, smile—and say ‘we are going to have a summer shower’.

John A. Macdonald 1851–91 Scottish-born Canadian statesman

It’s better to be looked over than overlooked.

Mae West 1892–1980 American film actress

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.

Mae West 1892–1980 American film actress

If not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.

P. G. Wodehouse 1881–1975 English-born writer

Science

see alsoPROGRESS, TECHNOLOGY

Basic research is like shooting an arrow into the air and, where it lands, painting a target.

Homer Burton Adkins 1892–1949 American organic chemist

When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.

W. H. Auden 1907–73 English poet

Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.

Wernher von Braun 1912–77 German-born American rocket engineer

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong.

Arthur C. Clarke 1917–2008 English science fiction writer

Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.

Stephen Hawking 1942–2018 English theoretical physicist

Cosmologists are often in error, but never in doubt.

Lev Landau 1908–68 Russian physicist

It was Einstein who made the real trouble. He announced in 1905 that there was no such thing as absolute rest. After that there never was.

Stephen Leacock 1869–1944 Canadian humorist

It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast.

Konrad Lorenz 1903–89 Austro-German zoologist

Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.

James Thurber 1894–1961 American humorist

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Mark Twain 1835–1910 American writer

Scotland