LAUGHTER QUOTES IV
quotations about laughter
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
Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore;
So much the better, you may laugh the more.
ALEXANDER POPE
Epilogue to Satire
When you've laughed like that with someone, it connects you at a humanity level.
JOHN CLEESE
interview, A. V. Club, February 5, 2008
A hearty laugh lengthens your life.
SWEDISH PROVERB
[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
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
Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.
PABLO NERUDA
"Your Laughter"
Remember laughter. You'll need it even in the blessed isles of Ever After.
JAMES THURBER
13 Clocks
I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
A laugh a day keeps the psychiatrist away.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news.
BERTOLT BRECHT
"To Those Born Later"
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.
STEPHEN COLBERT
interview, Parade Magazine, Sep. 23, 2007
People who stop laughing are always the ones who get hurt.
JOSH SUNDQUIST
Just Don't Fall
Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.
BOB NEWHART
attributed, Standup Comedian: The Secret and Beyond
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
BILLY JOEL
"Only the Good Die Young"
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
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Sartor Resartus
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
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion.... I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning do to do afterward.
KURT VONNEGUT
Palm Sunday
A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.
JOHN CLEESE
interview, A. V. Club, February 5, 2008