LAUGHTER QUOTES III
quotations about laughter
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 for democracy.
JOHN CLEESE
The Human Face
People who stop laughing are always the ones who get hurt.
JOSH SUNDQUIST
Just Don't Fall
Only in this world do we laugh: in hell, it won't be possible; and in heaven, it won't be proper.
JULES RENARD
attributed, The Comic Encyclopedia
Twenty years ago, ten years ago, I should have laughed, and have professed to you that I had merely smiled. A very young man is not content to be very young, nor even a young man to be young: he wants to share the dignity of his elders. There is no dignity in laughter, there is much of it in smiles. Laughter is but a joyous surrender, smiles give token of mature criticism. It may be that in the early ages of this world there was far more laughter than is to be heard now, and that aeons hence laughter will be obsolete, and smiles universal--every one, always, mildly, slightly, smiling. But it is less useful to speculate as to mankind's past and future than to observe men. And you will have observed with me in the club-room that young men at most times look solemn, whereas old men or men of middle age mostly smile; and also that those young men do often laugh loud and long among themselves, while we others--the gayest and best of us in the most favourable circumstances--seldom achieve more than our habitual act of smiling. Does the sound of that laughter jar on us? Do we liken it to the crackling of thorns under a pot? Let us do so. There is no cheerier sound. But let us not assume it to be the laughter of fools because we sit quiet. It is absurd to disapprove of what one envies, or to wish a good thing were no more because it has passed out of our possession.
MAX BEERBOHM
"Laughter", And Even Now
I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep.
PIERRE DE BEAUMARCHAIS
Barbier de Seville
It may be remarked in general, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a feint, constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them; but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world.
RICHARD STEELE
The Guardian, Apr. 14, 1713
Laughter isn't only about expressing joy. Sometimes we laugh out of embarrassment, sometimes from confusion, sometimes out of courtesy, and sometimes from nervousness. In the evil laugh, we celebrate the misfortune of others. Laughter can also express our personality -- the frivolous laugh, or the laugh of the loud and in-your-face extrovert versus the shy, withdrawn laugh of the introvert. Some people have a particular skill for the superior laugh. Does he who laughs last, laugh loudest?
STEVE ELLEN
"The lowdown on laughter: from boosting immunity to releasing tension", The Conversation, March 22, 2016
Laughter was the most terrible weapon: you can kill anything with laughter.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
Laugh, and be fat, sir, your penance is known.
They that love mirth, let them heartily drink,
'Tis the only receipt to make sorrow sink.
BEN JONSON
"The Penates", Masques and Entertainments
The problem is that we live in an uptight country. Why don't we just laugh at ourselves? We are funny. Gays are funny. Straights are funny. Women are funny. Men are funny. We are all funny, and we all do funny things. Let's laugh about it.
BOB NEWHART
I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This
It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh come, he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall, all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come, and like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go on with our labor, what it may be.
BRAM STOKER
Dracula
Nothing is more silly than silly laughter.
CATULLUS
Carmina
He who laughs last didn't get the joke at first.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
Laughing cheerfulness throws the light of day on all the paths of life.
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
attributed, Day's Collacon
[I am] persuaded that every time a man smiles, but much more so when he laughs ... it adds something to this fragment of life.
LAURENCE STERNE
dedication, The Works of Laurence Sterne
I prefer that laughter shall take me unawares. Only so can it master and dissolve me.
MAX BEERBOHM
"Laughter", And Even Now
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Sartor Resartus
Laughter is free, free your laughter.
ANONYMOUS
A laugh a day keeps the psychiatrist away.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes