"Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature: delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling."

"Society and its ideal average, normal mediocrity with its pleasing, mannerly, commonplace platitudes may have its fling of jeering at genius for not conforming to social usage and for breaking away from the well-trodden paths of social ruts. Far more effective and deadly are the stones of ridicule cast by the hand of genius at the Philistine Goliath, strong in his brute social power, but dull of wits. 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."

"They laugh that win."

"O, I am stabb'd with laughter."

"The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on me."

"O, you shall see him laugh till his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up."

"With his eyes in flood with laughter."

"I have always been a laugher, disturbing people who are not laughers, upsetting whole audiences at theatres... I laugh, that's all. I love to laugh. Laugher to me is being alive. I have had rotten times, and I have laughed through them. Even in the midst of the very worst times I have laughed."

"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."

"Castigat ridendo mores."

"Now everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor, and if it keeps on happening, why the entire laughter kinder Fades out of it."

"Niemand wird tiefer traurig als wer zu viel lächelt."

"Has he gone to the land of no laughter, The man who made mirth for us all?"

"Tel qui rit vendredi, dimanche pleurera."

"Put your prejudice aside, For, really, there's nothing here that's outrageous, Nothing sick, or bad — or contagious. Not that I sit here glowing with pride For my book: all you'll find is laughter: That's all the glory my heart is after, Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you. I'd rather write about laughing than crying, For laughter makes men human, and courageous."

"Nimium risus pretium est, si probitatis impendio constat."

"One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span, Because to laugh is proper to the man."

"The house of laughter makes a house of woe."

"I'd like to make you laugh for about ten minutes. Though I'm gonna be on for an hour."

"If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter."

"Cio ch'io vedeva mi sembrava un riso Dell' universo."

"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."

"I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things — because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself. But the truth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy."

"All schizophrenia patients are mad, and none are sane. Their behaviour is incomprehensible. It tells us nothing about what they do in the rest of their lives, gives no insight into the human condition and has no lesson for sane people except how sane they are. There's nothing profound about it. Schizophrenics aren't clever or wise or witty — they may make some very odd remarks but that's because they're mad, and there's nothing to be got out of what they say. When they laugh at things the rest of us don't think are funny, like the death of a parent, they're not being penetrating, and on other occasions they're not wryly amused at at the simplicity and stupidity of the psychiatrist, however well justified that might be in many cases. They're laughing because they're mad, too mad to be able to tell what's funny any more. The rewards for being sane may not be very many but knowing what's funny is one of them. And that's an end of the matter."

"Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God."

"You grow up the first day you have your first good laugh — at yourself."

"Je me hâte de me moquer de tous, de peur d'être obligé d'en pleurer."

"Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it."

"LAUGHTER, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals -- these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example, but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has not been answered by experimentation. Dr. Meir Witchell holds that the infection character of laughter is due to the instantaneous fermentation of sputa diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he names the disorder Convulsio spargens."

"When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it."

"Thanks to globalization, new technologies and social networks, we know that what makes us laugh or saddens us, causes exactly the same reaction on the other side of the world."

"That so much time was wasted in this pain. Ten thousand years ago he might have let off down To not return again! A dreadful laugh at last escapes his lips; The laughter sets him free. A Fool lives in the Universe! he cries. The Fool is me! And with one final shake of laughter Breaks his bonds. The nails fall skittering to marble floors. And Christ, knelt at the rail, sees miracle As Man steps down in amiable wisdom To give himself what no one else can give: His liberty."

"I am the dreamer and the doer I the hearer and the knower I the giver and the taker I the sword and the wound of sword. If this be true, then let sword fall free from hand. I embrace myself. I laugh until I weep And weep until I smile"

"We fired our laughs like cannons at its heart!"

"Tragedy is all about losing. And humor is all about gaining perspective. Humour returns our gladness. And with gladness comes generosity. Humor returns us to the light and makes us light—it kills grudges, buries bodies–buries revenge—buries blame and guilt—fear and dread. Laughter, like hiccups and sneezes and farts and burps, relieves us of severity."

"Truth's sacred fort th' exploded laugh shall win, And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin."

"It is the duty of the humor of any given nation in time of high crisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they cannot die before they are killed."

"The landlord's laugh was ready chorus."

"And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep."

"No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad."

"How much lies in Laughter: the cipher-key, wherewith we decipher the whole man."

"Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est."

"La plus perdue de toutes les journées est celle où l'on n'a pas rit."

"It is not funny that anything else should fall down, only that a man should fall down … 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."

"The vulgar only laugh, but never smile; whereas well-bred people often smile, but seldom laugh."

"Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true wit or good sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world."

"A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard to laugh."

"So much of "normal, civilized" life is bull that you can't imagine. … What frightens you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at."

"I'm struck by how laughter connects you with people. 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."