LAUGHTER QUOTES IV
quotations about laughter
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
O, you shall see him laugh till his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry IV, Part II
Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Royal Truths
If ever the day should come when men and women shall be content to signal their perception of humour by the natural smile, and shall keep the laugh for its own unpremeditated act, shall laugh seldom, and simply, and not thrice at the same thing--once for foolish surprise, and twice for tardy intelligence, and thrice to let it be known that they are amused--then it may be time to persuade this laughing nation not to laugh so loud as it is wont in public. The theatre audiences of louder-speaking nations laugh lower than ours. The laugh that is chiefly a signal of the laugher's sense of the ridiculous is necessarily loud; and it has the disadvantage of covering what we may perhaps wish to hear from the actors. It is a public laugh, and no ordinary citizen is called upon for a public laugh. He may laugh in public, but let it be with private laughter there.
ALICE MEYNELL
"Laughter", Ceres' Runaway & Other Essays
[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
People who stop laughing are always the ones who get hurt.
JOSH SUNDQUIST
Just Don't Fall
A laugh a day keeps the psychiatrist away.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Sartor Resartus
Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.
PABLO NERUDA
"Your Laughter"
A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.
WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD
Woman's Day Magazine, Jun. 1, 2007
You grow up the day you have your first real laugh -- at yourself.
ETHEL BARRYMORE
The Tell Tale, 1940
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Lectures on the English Comic Writers
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
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
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
BILLY JOEL
"Only the Good Die Young"
A hearty laugh lengthens your life.
SWEDISH PROVERB
You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.
STEPHEN KING
Hearts in Atlantis
How many people are actually 'laughing out loud' when they send LOL? These days, I'd argue that LOL (commonly without caps) barely indicates an internal, silent chuckle, never mind an uproarious, audible guffaw.
GRETCHEN MCCULLOCH
"How many people are actually 'laughing out loud' when they send LOL?", Slate, May 23, 2014
Comedy naturally wears itself out--destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
"On Modern Comedy", The Round Table
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