LAUGHTER QUOTES V
quotations about laughter
It would be a pity if laughter should ever become, like rhetoric and the arts, a habit. And it is in some sort a habit when it is not inevitable. If we ask ourselves why we laugh, we must confess that we laugh oftenest because--being amused--we intend to show that we are amused. We are right to make the sign, but a smile would be as sure a signal as a laugh, and more sincere; it would but be changing the convention; and the change would restore laughter itself to its own place. We have fallen into the way of using it to prove something--our sense of the goodness of the jest, to wit; but laughter should not thus be used, it should go free. It is not a demonstration, whether in logic, or--as the word demonstration is now generally used--in emotion; and we do ill to charge it with that office.
ALICE MEYNELL
"Laughter", Ceres' Runaway & Other Essays
Laughter is almost always accompanied by realization; it's the most fun way to learn.
ANDREW FRANK
"'Make Me Laugh' stand-up comedy contest comes to Norman for semifinals", The Oklahoma Daily, April 5, 2016
Love and laughter are the bricks we build our lives out of and the mortar that cements them together.
SUSAN ROSE BLAUNER
How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me
Laughter is the language of the soul.
PABLO NERUDA
I Explain a Few Things
Laughter is poison to fear.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN
A Game of Thrones
There is nothing [that] disarms us like laughter.
HENRI BERGSON
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
Laughing, if loud, ends with a deep sigh; and all pleasures have a sting in the tail, though they carry beauty in the face.
JEREMY TAYLOR
attributed, Day's Collacon
Many people will laugh at the drop of a hat, especially if the man is still in it.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
The only medicine that needs no prescription, has no unpleasant taste, and costs no money is laughter.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
A laughing fool ... seems born for nothing but to show his teeth.
GEORGE POPE MORRIS
The New York Mirror, Mar. 12, 1831
The house of laughter makes a house of woe.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
To laugh is proper to man.
FRANCOIS RABELAIS
Gargantua
The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Fiesco's Conspiracy at Genoa
He who always prefaces his tale with laughter, is poised between impertinence and folly.
JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Laughter is a pure, concentrated form of fault-tolerance; a much-needed way out when things go wrong.
SHEYNA GIFFORD
"My Life on (Simulated) Mars", Narratively, April 4, 2016
Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, 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.
STEVE ALLEN
Funny People
A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market.
CHARLES LAMB
Bon-Mots
In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred as audible laughter.
PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE
letter to his son, Mar. 9, 1748
There is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh ... 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion!
WILLIAM CONGREVE
The Double Dealer
Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.
VACLAV HAVEL
Disturbing the Peace