There are three theories of humor. The Superiority Theory — that you laugh when you realize that you're better than someone else. Then there's Freud's Release Theory, which says that jokes are about ventilating forbidden impulses. . . . All of the psychic energy you used to repress them gets released . . . in chest-heaving, spasmodic laughter. Then there's the one that makes most sense to me, the Incongruity Theory, that jokes are about the pure intellectual pleasure we take in yanking together things that seem utterly dissimilar and perceiving similarities. . . . That's the highest form of humor. As jokes get funnier, they rely more on incongruity and less on hostility and superiority or on sex and naughtiness. —Jim Holt More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email