quotations about laughter
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
Laughter is the language of the soul.
PABLO NERUDA
I Explain a Few Things
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
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
Laughter is, above all, a corrective. Being intended to humiliate, it must make a painful impression on the person against whom it is directed. By laughter, society avenges itself for the liberties taken with it. It would fail in its object if it bore the stamp of sympathy or kindness.
HENRI BERGSON
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
The suburbs of folly is vain mirth, and profuseness of laughter is the city of fools.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Enchiridion
The salvation of the world depends on the men whose laughter destroys the fool instead of encouraging him.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
Laughter is the hiccup of a fool.
W. GRESLEY
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
The only medicine that needs no prescription, has no unpleasant taste, and costs no money is laughter.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
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
The horse-laugh indicates brutality of character.
JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
You can't stay mad at somebody who makes you laugh.
JAY LENO
The Tonight Show
The most completely wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed.
NICOLAS CHAMFORT
Maximes et pensees
The house of laughter makes a house of woe.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
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 carbonated holiness.
ANNE LAMOTT
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
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
It is bad to suppress laughter. It goes back down and spreads to your hips.
FRED ALLEN
attributed, Dictionary of Quotations in Communications