quotations about laughter
Laugh and be wise.
MARTIAL
attributed, Day's Collacon
Just because there's a war going on doesn't mean people aren't laughing. In fact, in some of these absurd situations, laughing is the only thing you could do to make sense of it.
KIM BARKER
"War is once again a laughing matter", News OK, March 8, 2016
Laughter is the Wild Body's song of triumph.
WYNDHAM LEWIS
"Inferior Religions"
You can't stay mad at somebody who makes you laugh.
JAY LENO
The Tonight Show
Laughter would appear to be a physical reflex, although even if it is, this still leaves unanswered the question of why the human response to humor is a convulsive spasm of the respiratory mechanism rather than a crossing of the eyes or a waving of the arms.
STEVE ALLEN
How to Be Funny
The best laughter is the dangerous kind. The kind where you realize you can't breathe, all the while awash with a strange, addictive euphoria from the sensation. Happiness of this sort is like an ancient, esteemed timeless beast that snags you, transforming your face into 100 percent plastered smile, half-closed eyes and creases galore -- an unnatural embouchure that still feels true to even the most dour of us. A relentless, uncontrollable shaking and falling and crying and pseudo-dying takes hold of your body. Esoteric utterances, shrieks and inimitable ululations force themselves out of your mouth ... you get the point.
AMIRI BANKS
"Empty Victories", The Cornell Daily Sun, April 3, 2016
Laughter ... the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.
SEAN O'CASEY
The Letters of Sean O'Casey: 1959-64
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can; all of them make me laugh.
W. H. AUDEN
attributed, Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
A person who knows how to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.
SHIRLEY MACLAINE
Family Circle Magazine, Aug. 9, 2005
Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.
JIM BUTCHER
Changes
To such laughter nothing is more propitious than an occasion that demands gravity. To have good reason for not laughing is one of the surest aids. Laughter rejoices in bonds. If music halls were schoolrooms for us, and the comedians were our schoolmasters, how much less talent would be needed for giving us how much more joy! Even in private and accidental intercourse, few are the men whose humour can reduce us, be we never so susceptible, to paroxysms of mirth. I will wager that nine tenths of the world's best laughter is laughter at, not with. And it is the people set in authority over us that touch most surely our sense of the ridiculous.
MAX BEERBOHM
"Laughter", And Even Now
Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.
G. K. CHESTERTON
"Spiritualism", All Things Considered
The man that loves and laughs must sure do well.
ALEXANDER POPE
Imitations of Horace
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.
JOHN MILTON
L'Allegro
Laughter is equally the expression of extreme anguish and horror as of joy: as there are tears of sorrow and tears of joy, so is there a laugh of terror and a laugh of merriment.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
"Notes on Hamlet"
There is laughter that goes so far as to lose all touch with its motive, and to exist only, grossly, in itself. This is laughter at its best. A man to whom such laughter has often been granted may happen to die in a work-house. No matter. I will not admit that he has failed in life. Another man, who has never laughed thus, may be buried in Westminster Abbey, leaving more than a million pounds overhead. What then? I regard him as a failure.
MAX BEERBOHM
"Laughter", And Even Now
Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage.
ERMA BOMBECK
attributed, This Is Not the Life I Ordered
Few, as I have said, are the humorists who can induce this state. To master and dissolve us, to give us the joy of being worn down and tired out with laughter, is a success to be won by no man save in virtue of a rare staying-power. Laughter becomes extreme only if it be consecutive. There must be no pauses for recovery. Touch-and-go humour, however happy, is not enough. The jester must be able to grapple his theme and hang on to it, twisting it this way and that, and making it yield magically all manner of strange and precious things.
MAX BEERBOHM
"Laughter", And Even Now
Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.
GOLDA MEIR
attributed, Help! I'm Laughing and I Can't Get Up
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.
BORIS SIDIS
Psychology of Laughter