Laughter quotes
2.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside laughter — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn."
"That bright blue ball rising over the moon's surface, containing everything we hold dear - the laughter of children, a quiet sunset, all the hopes and dreams of posterity - that's what's at stake. That's what we're fighting for. And if we remember that, I'm absolutely sure we'll succeed."
"When, you know, I'm busy and Nancy Pelosi is busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else's mess - we don't want somebody sitting back saying, you're not holding the mop the right way. Why don't you grab a mop, why don't you help clean up. You're not mopping fast enough. That's a socialist mop. Grab a mop - let's get to work."
"Laughter boosts the immune system and helps the body fight off disease, cancer cells as well as viral, bacterial and other infections. Being happy is the best cure of all diseases!"
"Laughter can be used to sooth the mind and get rid of those awful thoughts."
"The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads. Laughter, praise, honors, money, and the love of beautiful girls will be your only reward."
"Myriad laughter of the ocean waves."
"I was talking to a Zen master the other day and he said, "You shall be my disciple."I looked at him and said, "Who was Buddha's teacher?" He looked at me in a very odd way for a moment and then he burst into laughter and handed me a piece of clover."
"O Mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. What is love? 'Tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies not plenty; Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure."
"To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impossible: Mirth cannot move a soul in agony."
"Tears and laughter, they are so much Gaelic to me."
"But we are alone, darling child, terribly, isolated each from the other; so fierce is the world's ridicule we cannot speak or show our tenderness; for us, death is stronger than life, it pulls like a wind through the dark, all our cries burlesqued in joyless laughter; and with the garbage of loneliness stuffed down us until our guts burst bleeding green, we go screaming round the world, dying in our rented rooms, nightmare hotels, eternal homes of the transient heart."
"The purpose of laughter is to bring one to silence, and the purpose of silence is to bring one to laughter."
"Anything with the power to make you laugh over thirty years later isn’t a waste of time. I think something like that is very close to immortality."
"Laughter opens your heart and soothes your soul. No one should ever take life so seriously that they forget to laugh at themselves."
"God, is this all it is, the ricocheting down the corridor of laughter and tears? Of self-worship and self-loathing? Of glory and disgust?"
"Within tears, find hidden laughter Seek treasures amid ruins, sincere one."
"Some sang too that Thror and Thrain would come back one day and gold would flow in rivers, through the mountain-gates, and all that land would be filled with new song and new laughter. But this pleasant legend did not much affect their daily business."
"I would only believe in a god who could dance. And when I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn: it was the spirit of gravity—through him all things fall. Not by wrath does one kill but by laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!"
"English humor is hard to appreciate, though, unless you are trained to it. The English papers, in reporting my speeches, always put 'laughter' in the wrong place."
