39 Funniest Trevor Noah Quotes Which Never Get Old

While we preach the power of the hustle on Execute Resources, there are times we all need to rest. For us, one of the best ways to relax is comedy and there are few people as funny as Trevor Noah.

His career as a comedian started in the early 2000’s in South Africa. His father is Swiss-German while his mother is Xhosa (African), allowing him to ease the racial tensions with comedy.

Interesting fact: At the time of his birth, it was still illegal to have an interracial relationship.

He’s become just as popular outside of South African as inside, having emigrated to the United States in 2011 to pursue his dreams. His popularity sky-rocketed after appearing on many late-night TV shows in North America and England, paired with a packed tour schedule which included Australia.

He recently moved from NYC to Los Angeles after buying a $27.5-million dollar mansion.

Clearly a man who knoew what he wanted and executed relentlessly. With these quotes by Trevor Noah, we hope you can find some humor in the underlying racial tensions still prevelant in some parts of the world.

1. We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.

Trevor Noah

2. If you laugh with somebody, then you share something.

Trevor Noah

3. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to.

Trevor Noah

4. We live in a world where we don’t see the ramifications of what we do to others because we don’t live with them.

Trevor Noah

5. Learn from your past and be better because of your past…

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6. We live in the Internet age. Everyone wants clicks. Clicks are what sells.

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7. Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.

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8. We get angry about the small things sometimes, I feel so that we feel like we’re doing something so that we don’t have to tackle the big things. And it’s fine; let people do that. But I’m not gonna now change because of that. Do you know? Like, the worst thing that happens to me is you don’t like me. And then what?

Trevor Noah

9. Often, people who can do, don’t because they’re afraid of what people that can’t do will say about them doing.

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10. I always believe that funny is serious and serious is funny. You don’t really need a distinction between them.

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11. I don’t think I have thick skin, but I heal fast. It’s easy to break through, but I heal fast.

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12. If you look at it, the history of comedy has always been strongest among the nations who have been persecuted the most.

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13. But the real world doesn’t go away. Racism exists. People are getting hurt. And just because it’s not happening to you, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

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14. Most of my show is true; like, 90% of everything I say on stage is true. I just have to find a way to make it funny – that’s the difficult thing.

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15. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most.

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16. The first thing I learned about having money was that it gives you choices. People don’t want to be rich. They want to be able to choose. The richer you are, the more choices you have. That is the freedom of money.

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17. I’ve always been a fan of issues around race and racialism, and I’ve loved playing with it. People act as though it isn’t an issue, but it’s a recurring theme in our lives globally.

Trevor Noah

18. Progression, in my opinion, is often identifying shortcomings – whether it’s views or the things you’re doing in your life, your relationships – and trying to find the places where you improve on those.

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19. Language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.

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20. You have to work a bit harder to offend me because I’m from the home of some of the best racism in the world. I’m a snob when it comes to racism.

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21. America was a thing I saw on TV – that wasn’t a real world. That wasn’t within my realm of dreaming.

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22. Comedy is a great tool. We are trying to find ways to use humor to enlighten people without preaching to them.

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23. When you are honest in your comedy, you have to acknowledge the world that you’re in. Through a comedic voice, you’re talking about what needs to be talked about, whether it’s race relations or politics or anything that’s happening on a global or an American scale.

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24. If this comedy thing doesn’t work out, I’ve always got poverty to fall back on.

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25. I never thought I’d be more afraid of police in America than in South Africa. It kind of makes me a little nostalgic for the old days back home.

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26. As an outsider myself, I always mixed myself with different groups…I’ve never been afraid to go into a different space and relate to those people, because I don’t have a place where I belong and that means I belong everywhere.

Trevor Noah

27. Now I wonder if somebody went to jail because a witness was ‘sure’ that the criminal was wearing ‘white and gold.

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28. You’ll have a few bruises and they’ll remind you of what happened and that’s okay. But after a while, the bruises fade and they fade for a reason. Because now, it’s time to get up to some s**t again.

Trevor Noah

29. Growing up in a home of abuse, you struggle with the notion that you can love a person you hate or hate a person you love. It’s a strange feeling.

Trevor Noah

30. The first purpose of comedy is to make people laugh. Anything deeper is a bonus. Some comedians want to make people laugh and make them think about socially relevant issues, but comedy, by the very nature of the word, is to make people laugh. If people aren’t laughing, it’s not a comedy. It’s as simple as that.

Trevor Noah

31. Don’t cry about your past. Life is full of pain. Let the pain sharpen you, but don’t hold on to it. Don’t be bitter.

Trevor Noah

32. In life only three things are certain: death, Adobe updates and taxes.

Trevor Noah

33. Love, unfortunately, sometimes gives you the ability to forgive somebody and blind yourself to the truth.

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34. You know what African mothers tell their children everyday? ‘Be grateful for what you have. Because there are fat children starving in Mississippi.

Trevor Noah

35. You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad. Where you either hate them or love them. But that’s not how people are.

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36. I’m not an abrasive person. I do speak my mind, but my goal is never to offend. I don’t intentionally want to strike a chord.

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37. I was born in South Africa during apartheid, a system of laws that made it illegal for people to mix in South Africa. And this was obviously awkward because I grew up in a mixed family. My mother’s a black woman, South African Xhosa woman… and my father’s Swiss, from Switzerland.

Trevor Noah

38. That awkward moment when you are sitting next to people who gossip too much that you are even scared of leaving them cause you know that you are next.

Trevor Noah

39. The truth is, people, don’t know me. When people don’t know you, they’re going to try to get to know you as quickly as possible, because you’re now taking the place of somebody that they love dearly, or somebody that they hate sincerely, and so they need to know who you are.

Trevor Noah