Without laughterlife on our planet would be intolerable. ~Steve Allen
Laughter can be an audible expression of merriment and amusement or an inward feeling ofjoy orpleasure, in a reaction to certain stimuli, including fundamental stresses, which serves as an emotional balancing mechanism.
Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. ~Joseph AddisonMirth isGod's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. ~Henry Ward BeecherA dreadful laugh at last escapes his lips; The laughter sets himfree. AFool lives in theUniverse! he cries. The Fool isme! ~Ray BradburyI embrace myself. I laugh until I weep And weep until I smile ~Ray Bradbury
If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
Without laughterlife on ourplanet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us thathumanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions onearth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations.
I think that the tendency for mostpeople is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things — because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself. But thetruth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy.
All schizophrenia patients are mad, and none are sane. Their behaviour is incomprehensible. It tells us nothing about what they do in the rest of their lives, gives no insight into the human condition and has no lesson for sane people except how sane they are. There's nothing profound about it. Schizophrenics aren't clever or wise or witty — they may make some very odd remarks but that's because they're mad, and there's nothing to be got out of what they say. When they laugh at things the rest of us don't think are funny, like the death of a parent, they're not being penetrating, and on other occasions they're not wryly amused at at the simplicity and stupidity of the psychiatrist, however well justified that might be in many cases. They're laughing because they're mad, too mad to be able to tell what's funny any more. The rewards for being sane may not be very many but knowing what's funny is one of them. And that's an end of the matter.
Karl Barth, as quoted inThe Harper Book Of Quotations (1993) edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry, p. 223
You grow up the first day you have your firstgood laugh — atyourself.
Ethel Barrymore, as quoted in1,600 Quotes & Pieces of Wisdom That Just Might Help You Out When You're Stuck in a Moment (and Can't Get Out of It!) (2003) by Gary P. Guthrie
Je me hâte de me moquer de tous, de peur d'être obligé d'en pleurer.
I hasten to laugh ateverything, forfear of being obliged to weep.
LAUGHTER,n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals -- these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example, but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has not been answered by experimentation. Dr. Meir Witchell holds that the infection character of laughter is due to the instantaneous fermentation ofsputa diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he names the disorderConvulsio spargens.
Ambrose Bierce,The Cynic's Word Book (1906); republished asThe Devil's Dictionary (1911). (The quote as stated is from the 1911 edition — the 1906 edition has "Weir Mitchell" instead of "Meir Witchell".S. Weir Mitchell (1829–1914) was a famous American physician, scientist, and author, known as a pioneer of medical neurology.)
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.
Thanks toglobalization, newtechnologies and social networks, we know that what makes uslaugh or saddens us, causes exactly the same reaction on the other side of the world.
That so muchtime was wasted in thispain. Ten thousand years ago he might have let off down To not return again! A dreadful laugh at last escapes his lips; The laughter sets himfree. AFool lives in theUniverse! he cries. The Fool is me! And with one final shake of laughter Breaks his bonds. The nails fall skittering to marble floors. AndChrist, knelt at the rail, seesmiracle AsMan steps down in amiablewisdom To give himself what no one else can give: Hisliberty.
Ray Bradbury, in "Christ, Old Student in a New School" (1972)
I am thedreamer and thedoer I the hearer and the knower I the giver and the taker I thesword and the wound of sword. If this be true, then let sword fall free fromhand. I embrace myself. I laugh until I weep And weep until I smile
Ray Bradbury, in "Christ, Old Student in a New School" (1972)
Tragedy is all about losing. Andhumor is all about gaining perspective. Humour returns our gladness. And with gladness comesgenerosity. Humor returns us to the light and makes us light—it kills grudges, buries bodies–buries revenge—buries blame and guilt—fear and dread. Laughter, like hiccups and sneezes and farts and burps, relieves us of severity.
Truth's sacred fort th' exploded laugh shall win, And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.
John Brown,Essay on Satire, Part II. V. 224, On the death of Pope, prefixed to Pope'sEssay on Man, in Warburton's edition of Pope's Works
It is the duty of thehumor of any givennation in time of highcrisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they cannot die before they are killed.
Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can beabsurd: for only man can bedignified. ~G. K. Chesterton
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
Thomas Carlyle,Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), Book I, Chapter IV
How much lies in Laughter: the cipher-key, wherewith we decipher the whole man.
Thomas Carlyle,Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), Book I, Chapter IV
I admire the man who exclaimed, “I have lost a day!” because he had neglected to do any good in the course of it; but another has observed that “the most lost of all days, is that in which we have not laughed;” and, I must confess, that I feel myself greatly of his opinion.
It is not funny that anything else should fall down, only that a man should fall down …Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravelyreligious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can beabsurd: for only man can bedignified.
G. K. Chesterton, "Spiritualism", inAll Things Considered (1908)
The vulgar only laugh, but never smile; whereas well-bred people often smile, but seldom laugh.
Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true wit or good sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world.
I'm struck by how laughter connects you with people. It's almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you're just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force fordemocracy.
If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And, if I can persuade you to laugh at a particular point that I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge it as true.
John Cleese, as quoted inWhat Winners Do to Win! : The 7 Minutes a Day That Can Change Your Life (2003) by Nicki Joy, p. 113
Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy?You can't laugh and be afraid at the same time — of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid.
He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms.His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as ajudge ofTruth andKnowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of thegods.
Albert Einstein in hisEssays Presented to Leo Baeck on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (1954), p. 26
It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
Maybe they [women who were executed by the Taliban] were guilty of the worst of all crimes: to laugh. Yes. Laughing. I said laughter. Didn't you know that with the Taliban in Afghanistan women can't laugh, that they are even forbidden to laugh?
I have known sorrow—therefore I May laugh with you, O friend, more merrily Than those who never sorrowed upon earth And know not laughter's worth.
I have known laughter—therefore I May sorrow with you far more tenderly Than those who never guess how sad a thing Seems merriment to one heart's suffering.
In a dream I sawJesus and My GodPan sitting together in the heart of the forest. They laughed at each other's speech, with the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long.
Khalil Gibran, inJesus, The Son of Man (1928), "Sarkis an old Greek Shepherd, called the madman: Jesus and Pan"
I am the laughter of the new-born child On whose soft-breathing sleep an angel smiled.
Poets have imagined no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. And even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into laughter that rolled away into the night, and was indistinctly reverberated among the hills.
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
William Hazlitt,Lectures on the English Comic Writers, "Lecture I: On Wit and Humour" (1819)
Laugh not too much; the witty man laughs least: For wit is news only to ignorance. Lesse at thine own things laugh; lest in the jest Thy person share, and the conceit advance.
George Herbert,The Temple (1633),Church Porch, Stanza 39
And unextinguish'd laughter shakes the skies.
Homer,The Iliad, Book I, line 771. Odyssey, Book VIII, line 116. Pope's translation
Discit enim citius, meminitque libentius ilud Quod quis deridet, quam quod probat et veneratur.
For a man learns more quickly and remembers more easily that which he laughs at, than that which he approves and reveres.
I have just now come from a party where I was itslife andsoul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth's orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself.
Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, take it and practice it earnestly. Scholars of the middle class, when they hear of it, take it half earnestly. Scholars of the lowest class, when they hear of it, laugh at it. Without the laughter, there would be no Tao.
There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.
Aubrey Menen,Rama Retold (1954), p. 231. This is a modern retelling of part of the Ramayana. President John F. Kennedy presented his friend, White House appointment secretary David Powers, with a silver beer mug for his birthday, April 26, 1963. The inscription on the mug was a slight variation on the lines above: There are three things which are real:
God, human folly and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension So we must do what we can with the third.
Creator.A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.
H.L. Mencken, inA Book of Burlesques (1920), p. 203. andA Mencken Chrestomathy (1949), Ch. 30; a paraphrase of this has become misattributed toVoltaire:
God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
The sense of humor has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter.
Alice Meynell, "Laughter", inCeres' Runaway and Other Essays (London: Burns & Oates, 1909), p. 33
Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides.
Seventy-three men sailed in, from the San Francisco Bay, Rolled off of their ship and here's what they had to say. "We're calling everyone to ride along, to another shore. Where we can laugh our lives away and be free once more." But no one heard them calling, no one came at all, 'Cause they were too busy watching those old raindrops fall.
To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity.
Pliny the Elder,Natural History, Book VII, Chapter I. Holland's translation
Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore; So much the better, you may laugh the more.
One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span, Because to laugh is proper to the man.
François Rabelais,Gargantua, Book 1, "Rabelais to the Reader" (1534)
Put yourprejudice aside, For, really, there's nothing here that's outrageous, Nothing sick, or bad — or contagious. Not that I sit here glowing with pride For my book: all you'll find is laughter: That's all the glory my heart is after, Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you. I'd rather write about laughing than crying, For laughter makes men human, and courageous.
Now everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor, and if it keeps on happening, why the entire laughter kinder Fades out of it.
Will Rogers, in "Warning to Jokers: Lay off the Prince", inThe Illiterate Digest (1924), p. 131
Try as much as possible to be whollyalive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you getangry, getgood and angry. Try to be alive. You will bedead soon enough... ~William SaroyanSocial laughter is momentary, soon burns itself out and passes away like thefire and smokes of straw, butgenius shakes the veryskies with its lasting, inextinguishable laughter. ~Boris Sidis
Castigat ridendo mores.
He chastizes manners with a laugh.
Santeuil, motto of the Comédie Italienne, and Opéra Comique, Paris
Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be whollyalive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will bedead soon enough.
William Saroyan, inThe Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934), Preface
I have always been a laugher, disturbing people who are not laughers, upsetting whole audiences at theatres... I laugh, that's all. I love to laugh. Laugher to me is being alive. I have had rotten times, and I have laughed through them.Even in the midst of the very worst times I have laughed.
William Saroyan, inSons Come and Go, Mothers Hang in Forever (1976)
Society and its ideal average, normal mediocrity with its pleasing, mannerly, commonplace platitudes may have its fling of jeering atgenius for not conforming to social usage and for breaking away from the well-trodden paths of social ruts. Far more effective and deadly are the stones of ridicule cast by the hand of genius at the Philistine Goliath, strong in his brutesocial power, but dull of wits.Social laughter is momentary, soon burns itself out and passes away like the fire and smokes of straw, but genius shakes the very skies with its lasting, inextinguishable laughter.
Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature: delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling.
Your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little—crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.
Mark Twain, "The Chronicle of Young Satan" (ca. 1897–1900, unfinished),published posthumously inMark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (1969), ed. William Merriam Gibson
John Vanbrugh,The Country House, Act II, sc. v (1706); comparable to an older formulation of the proverbial notion:
Variants :Laugh on laugh on my freind Hee laugheth best that laugheth to the end.
Anonymous Jacobean student play, in 'The Christmas Prince : An account of the St. John's College Revels held at Oxford in 1607-8, from the original manuscript in the college library (1923), edited by Frederic S. Boas , p. 109
Better the last smile than the first laughter.
Ray—Collection of Old English Proverbs, as reported inHoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 428-30
Theman with the real sense ofhumor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortunes. That is what I am called upon to do every day. ~Bert Williams
Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own.
I think that wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience — and laughter.
Susan M. Watkins quoted in: Shawn Brennan, Julie Winklepleck, Gina Renée Misiroglu (1994) Resourceful Woman, p. 532
The man with the real sense of humor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortunes. That is what I am called upon to do every day.
Bert Williams, minstrel show comedian, in "The Comic Side of Trouble" inThe American Magazine (January 1918), p. 33
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt; And every Grin, so merry, draws one out.
John Wolcot (Peter Pindar),Expostulatory Odes, Ode 15
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