Emotions

"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."

"Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est."

"For a man learns more quickly and remembers more easily that which he laughs at, than that which he approves and reveres."

"For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"The landlord's laugh was ready chorus."

"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"

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"Laugh, and be fat, sir, your penance is known. They that love mirth, let them heartily drink, 'Tis the only receipt to make sorrow sink."

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

"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 our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land."

"To laugh were want of goodness and of grace; And to be grave, exceeds all pow'r of face."

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

"The man that loves and laughs must sure do well."

"Seventy-three men sailed in, from the San Francisco Bay, Rolled off of their ship and here's what they had to say. "We're calling everyone to ride along, to another shore. Where we can laugh our lives away and be free once more." But no one heard them calling, no one came at all, 'Cause they were too busy watching those old raindrops fall."

"To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity."

"Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore; So much the better, you may laugh the more."

"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."

"That, in the midst of our daily struggle from birth to death, mankind should ever have conceived such things as laughter or beauty or goodness appears to me a far more marvellous thing than the finest supernatural miracle ever invented by all the mythologies."

"The sense of humor has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter."

"Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter."

"There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third."

"Creator. A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh."

"She loves to laugh; she loves to sing. She does everything."

"Laughter is the climax in the tragedy of seeing, hearing and smelling self-consciously."

"Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, take it and practice it earnestly. Scholars of the middle class, when they hear of it, take it half earnestly. Scholars of the lowest class, when they hear of it, laugh at it. Without the laughter, there would be no Tao."

"We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all."

"You can tell By the laugh in the dark at the sound of the bell You can tell It's the nucleus burning inside of the cell…"

"You have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy."

"Laughter is poison to fear."

"I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth's orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself."