“Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!” he said to himself, and it became a favorite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Hobbit, ch. 12 “Inside Information” (1937)
(Source)
Quotations about:
laughter
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
No day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a little child will make it holier still.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child” (1877)
(Source)
Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 52, epigraph (1897)
Although my mother didn’t know anything about science, she had a great influence on me as well. In particular, she had a wonderful sense of humor, and I learned from her that the highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
What Do You Care What Other People Think?, “The Making of a Scientist” (1988)
(Source)
Your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon — laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution — these can lift at a colossal humbug, — push it a little — crowd it a little — weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with your other weapons. Do you ever use that one? No; you leave it lying rusting. As a race, do you ever use it at all? No; you lack sense and the courage.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
“The Chronicle of Young Satan” (c.1897–1900, unfinished)
(Source)
Often paraphrased: "The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter." This is an excised passage from what was eventually posthumously published as No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (1916).
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.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
The Illiterate Digest, “Warning to Jokers: Lay off the Prince” (1924)
(Source)
CREATOR. A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Book of Burlesques, “The Jazz Webster” (1924)
(Source)
The A Little Book in C Major, ch. 4, § 18 (1916), has an alternate definition. This was expanded in Burlesques to include the above, which then became the sole definition in Chrestomathy, ch. 30 "Sententiae" (1949).
Sometimes misattributed to Voltaire.
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
“What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us?” (1899)
(Source)
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
The Doctor’s Dilemma, Act 5 [Ridgeon] (1906)
(Source)
Human beings reveal their character most clearly by what they find ridiculous.
[Durch nichts bezeichnen die Menschen mehr ihren Charakter als durch das, was sie lächerlich finden.]
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Elective Affinities [Die Wahlverwandtschaften], Part 2, ch. 4, “From Ottilie’s Journal [Aus Ottiliens Tagebuche]” (1809) [tr. Hollingdale (1971)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:
There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they find to laugh at.
[Niles ed. (1872)]
Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable.
[Source]
For an opposite perspective, see Lichtenberg.
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.
William Saroyan (1908-1981) American writer
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories, Preface (1934)
(Source)
Advice to writers.
Always laugh when you can; it is cheap medicine.
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
(Attributed)
Widely attributed to Byron, but no source cited.
Good friends, my Readers, who peruse this Book,
Be not offended, whilst on it you look:
Denude yourself of all depraved affection,
For it contains no badness, nor infection:
‘Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth
Of any value, but in point of mirth;
Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind
Consume, I could no apter subject find:
One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span;
Because to laugh is proper to the man.[Amis lecteurs qui ce livre lisez,
Despouillez vous de toute affection.
Et le lisants ne vous scandalisez,
Il ne contient mal ne infection.
Vray est qu’icy peu de perfection
Vous apprendrez, si non en cas de rire.
Aultre argument ne peut mon cueur elire.
Voiant le dueil qui vous mine & consomme,
Mieulx est de ris que de larmes escrire,
Pour ce que rire est le propre de l’homme.
VIVEZ IOYEUX]François Rabelais (1494-1553) French writer, humanist, doctor
Gargantua and Pantagruel, “To the Readers” (1534-1542) [tr Urquhart/Motteux (1653)]
(Source)
The work was deemed obscene by the censors of the Collège de la Sorbonne.
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
My kindly Readers, who this Book begin,
All Prejudice, I pray you, lay aside,
And reading it, find no Offence therein;
In it nor Hurt nor Poison doth abide.
'Tis true that small Perfection here doth hide;
Nought will you learn save only Mirth's Delight;
No other Subject can my Heart indite,
Seeing the Dole that wastes and makes you wan;
'Tis better far of Mirth than Tears to write,
For Laughter is the special Gift to Man.
LIVE MERRILY
[tr. Smith (1893)]
Kind readers, who vouchsafe to cast an eye
On what ensues, all prejudice lay by:
Let not my book your indignation raise;
It means no harm, no poison it conveys.
Except in point of laughing, it is true
Not much 'twill teach you -- it being all my view
To inspire with mirth the hearts of those that moan,
And change to laughter the afflictive groan,
FOR LAUGHTER IS MAN'S PROPERTY ALONE.
[tr. Urguhart/Motteux/Stokes (1905)]
Readers, friends, if you turn these pages
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.
BE HAPPY!
[tr. Raffel (1989)]
You friends and readers of this book, take heed:
Pray put all perturbation far behind,
And do not be offended as you read:
It holds no evil to corrupt the mind;
Though here perfection may be hard to find,
Unless in point of laughter and good cheer;
No other subject can my heart hold dear,
Seeing the grief that robs you of your rest:
Better a laugh to write of than a tear,
For it is laughter that becomes man best.
[tr. Frame (1991)]
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
W. H. Auden (1907-1973) Anglo-American poet [Wystan Hugh Auden]
The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays, Part 7 “The Shield of Perseus,” “Notes on the Comic” (1962)
(Source)
This world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel.
Horace Walpole (1717-1797) English novelist, letter writer
Letter to Anne, Countess of Upper Ossory (16 Aug 1776)
(Source)
Walpole frequently used used this phrase or variants in letters (and in fact prefaces this quote with "I have often said ..."). Another example is an earlier letter to Horace Mann (31 Dec 1769):
I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel -- a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.
It may be derived from an (unsourced) similar quote attributed Jean de La Bruyère: "Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think".
And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
‘Tis that I may not weep.
Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their pedestals.
Humor is just another defense against the universe.
Mel Brooks (b. 1926) American comedic actor, writer, producer [b. Melvyn Kaminsky]
(Attributed)
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 (1778-1830) English writer
Lectures on the English Comic Writers, Lecture 1 “On Wit and Humour” (1819)
(Source)
Sometimes altered to end "... and what they might have been."
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
[Wer es unternimmt, auf dem Gebiet der Wahrheit und der Erkenntnis als Autoritat aufzutreten, scheitert am Gelachter der Gotter.]
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“Neun Aphorismen” (23 May 1953), Essays Presented to Leo Baeck on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (1954) [Einstein Archives 28-962]
(Source)
Original German. Alternate translation: "He who endeavors to present himself as an authority in matters of truth and cognition, will be wrecked by the laughter of the gods."
Laughter is sunshine; it chases winter from the human face.
[Le rire, c’est le soleil; il chasse l’hiver du visage humain.]
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Les Misérables, Part 2 “Cosette,” Book 8 “Cemeteries Take What Is Given Them,” ch. 9 (2.8.9) (1862) [tr. Wilbour (1862)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
For laughter is the sun which drives winter from the human face.
[tr. Wraxall (1862)]
A smile is the same as sunshine; it banishes winter from the human countenance.
[tr. Hapgood (1887)]
Laughter is a sun that drives out winter from the human face.
[tr. Denny (1976)]
Laughter is sunshine; it chases winter from the human face.
[tr. Wilbour/Fahnestock/MacAfee (1987)]
Laughter is sunshine. It banishes winter from the human countenance.
[tr. Donougher (2013)]