A sense of humor is high on my list of virtues, in interplay with humility and compassion and a capacity to change when that is the right thing to do.
Krista Tippett
A Sense of Humor
Topic: Joy & Happiness
I have yet to meet a wise person who doesn’t know how to find some joy even in the midst of what is hard, and to smile and laugh easily, including at oneself. A sense of humor is high on my list of virtues, in interplay with humility and compassion and a capacity to change when that is the right thing to do. It’s one of those virtues that softens us for all the others. Desmond Tutu, whom I found impossible to doubt, says that God has a sense of humor.
Krista Tippett, born Krista Weedman on November 9, 1960, in the United States, is a journalist, author, and public thinker known for exploring faith, ethics, and human meaning. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in 1983 and studied at the University of Bonn in West Germany on a Fulbright scholarship. Her early career as a journalist took her to divided Berlin, where she worked for The New York Times, Newsweek, and other international outlets. She later served as a political aide to U.S. diplomats in West Berlin and West Germany, an experience that deepened her interest in the moral dimensions of power and shaped her future work in spirituality and public discourse.
Seeking a deeper understanding of these questions, Tippett earned a Master of Divinity from Yale University in 1994. While conducting an oral history project for the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, she developed the idea for On Being, a radio program exploring religious and philosophical questions with depth and openness. Launched as a monthly series in 2001 and expanded nationally in 2003, the show has featured conversations with scholars, artists, and religious thinkers. It earned a Peabody Award in 2008 for its episode "The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi." In 2013, Tippett founded Krista Tippett Public Productions, an independent nonprofit dedicated to fostering meaningful dialogue, and co-created the Civil Conversations Project to help address political and social divides.
Tippett is the author of Speaking of Faith (2008), Einstein’s God (2010), and Becoming Wise (2016), a New York Times bestseller. Her contributions to public thought have been widely recognized, including the National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama in 2014. In 2019, she was named the Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor at Stanford University, and in 2025, she was appointed a Chubb Fellow at Yale University. Through her writing and conversations, Tippett continues to engage the complexities of human experience, bridging faith, science, and philosophy in ways that invite reflection and understanding.
Becoming Wise
Tippett, Krista. Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living. Penguin Press, 2016, p. 13.
Krista Tippett
Theme: Humor
About This Krista Tippett Quotation [Commentary]
Krista Tippett begins with a simple mark of wisdom: the ability “to find some joy even in the midst of what is hard.” She does not separate joy from difficulty or treat laughter as avoidance. In her words, the wise person can “smile and laugh easily, including at oneself,” because self-seriousness can close the heart. Humor becomes part of a truthful way of living with hardship, keeping a person open and receptive when life is demanding.
Krista Tippett places “a sense of humor” “high on my list of virtues,” but not as a virtue that stands alone. It belongs “in interplay with humility and compassion and a capacity to change when that is the right thing to do.” Laughter at oneself can make humility more honest, compassion less rigid, and change less threatening. It helps loosen the grip of certainty without losing sincerity.
This is why Krista Tippett calls humor “one of those virtues that softens us for all the others.” It prepares the inner life for kindness, learning, and repair. Her reference to Desmond Tutu’s saying that “God has a sense of humor” widens the point without overstating it. Humor helps us meet what is hard with joy, humility, compassion, and the freedom to change “when that is the right thing to do.”
Context Passage for this Krista Tippett Quotation [Excerpt]
But left of center, right of center, in the expansive middle and heart of our life together, most of us have some questions left alongside our answers, some curiosity alongside our convictions. This book is for people who want to take up the great questions of our time with imagination and courage, to nurture new realities in the spaces we inhabit, and to do so expectantly and with joy. I have yet to meet a wise person who doesn’t know how to find some joy even in the midst of what is hard, and to smile and laugh easily, including at oneself. A sense of humor is high on my list of virtues, in interplay with humility and compassion and a capacity to change when that is the right thing to do. It’s one of those virtues that softens us for all the others. Desmond Tutu, whom I found impossible to doubt, says that God has a sense of humor. There is a science helping us to see a sense of humor in the brain as an expression of creativity, making unlikely connections and leaning into them with joy. So I hope and trust that a smile in the voice may sometimes rise from these pages. And I do bring many voices along with me here, snatches of conversation completing and informing my thoughts, as they do all the time in my life and work.
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