Discourse

"If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And, if I can persuade you to laugh at a particular point that I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge it as true."

"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."

"The landlord's laugh was ready chorus."

"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."

"Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est."

"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."

"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 have known sorrow—therefore I May laugh with you, O friend, more merrily Than those who never sorrowed upon earth And know not laughter's worth. I have known laughter—therefore I May sorrow with you far more tenderly Than those who never guess how sad a thing Seems merriment to one heart's suffering."

"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"

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"Oft on the dappled turf at ease I sit, and play with similes, Loose type of things through all degrees."

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

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

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

""We worked with a guy called Dr. Stuart Smith from UCLA and he’s an Egyptologist He put all this stuff on tape for us and it’s kind of the closest we can come to what we think the actual language sounded like. It’s like ancient Latin. When we speak Latin now we think it’s what it sounded like, but we’re not really sure. The problem with a lot of this Egyptian stuff is words like ‘look out’ become like 10 lines. Steve would go, ‘No, no, no. Lose the first four words. Say that word and then say the last word.’ So basically, I’d end up making the stuff up."

"Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas they cannot retain an identity of language."

"The English language is my bitch. Or I don't speak it very well. Whatever."

"Don Chaucer, well of English undefyled On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled."

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

"Syllables govern the world."

"Ego sum rex Romanus, et supra grammaticam."

"From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World's Child, Who in the language of their farm field spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk."

"Writ in the climate of heaven, in the language spoken by angels."

"La grammaire, qui sait régenter jusqu'aux rois, Et les fait, la main haute, obéir à ses lois."

"Une louange en grec est d'une merveilleuse efficace à la tête d'un livre."

"L'accent du pays où l'on est né demeure dans l'esprit et dans le cœur comme dans le langage."

"“A language, like a species, when extinct, never… reappears.”"

"And don't confound the language of the nation With long-tailed words in osity and ation."

"L'accent est l'âme du discours, il lui donne le sentiment et la vérité."

"Language is the only instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas."

"And who in time knows whither we may vent The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores This gain of our best glory shall be sent, T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores? What worlds in th' yet unformed Occident May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?"

"Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows Where noun, and verb, and participle grows."

"Language is fossil poetry."

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

"In a dream I saw Jesus and My God Pan sitting together in the heart of the forest. They laughed at each other's speech, with the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long."

"No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached"

"Jede Zeit sagt, daß derzeit die Sprache so gefährdet und von Zersetzung bedroht sei wie nie zuvor. In unserer Zeit aber ist die Sprache tatsächlich so gefährdet und von Zersetzung bedroht wie nie zuvor."

"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language."

"Evolution teaches us the original purpose of language was to ritualize men's threats and curses, his spells to compel the gods; communication came later."