quotations about laughter
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
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
The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Fiesco's Conspiracy at Genoa
It is bad to suppress laughter. It goes back down and spreads to your hips.
FRED ALLEN
attributed, Dictionary of Quotations in Communications
A laughing fool ... seems born for nothing but to show his teeth.
GEORGE POPE MORRIS
The New York Mirror, Mar. 12, 1831
Life is worth living as long as there's a laugh in it.
LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY
Anne of Green Gables
Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry -- and the world laughs harder.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
He who always prefaces his tale with laughter, is poised between impertinence and folly.
JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER
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
Laughter is the representative of Tragedy, when Tragedy is away.
WYNDHAM LEWIS
"Inferior Religions"
Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.
JIM BUTCHER
Changes
A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market.
CHARLES LAMB
Bon-Mots
To laugh is proper to man.
FRANCOIS RABELAIS
Gargantua
It's no use crying over spilt evils. It's better to mop them up laughing.
ELEANOR FARJEON
Gypsy and Ginger
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
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
Has the gift of laughter been withdrawn from me? I protest that I do still, at the age of forty-seven, laugh often and loud and long. But not, I believe, so long and loud and often as in my less smiling youth. And I am proud, nowadays, of laughing, and grateful to any one who makes me laugh. That is a bad sign. I no longer take laughter as a matter of course.
MAX BEERBOHM
"Laughter", And Even Now
He laughs best who laughs last.
JOHN VANBRUGH
The Country House
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
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