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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"Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: "Pipe a song about a Lamb." So I piped with merry cheer; "Piper, pipe that song again." So I piped; he wept to hear."
"We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us."
"Laughter not time destroyed my voice And put that crack in it, And when the moon's pot-bellied I get a laughing fit."
"Make for the children an evening of happiness in a world of storm. Let the children have their night of fun and laughter... resolved that by our daring, these same children shall not be denied their right to live in a free and decent world."
"Laughter is the Wild Body's song of triumph."
"Laughter is the representative of Tragedy, when Tragedy is away."
"But laughter is weakness, corruption, the foolishness of our flesh."
"When all the archetypes burst out shamelessly, we plumb the depths of Homeric profundity. Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés moves us because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion. . . . Just as the extreme of pain meets sensual pleasure, and the extreme of perversion borders on mystical energy, so too the extreme of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the Sublime."
"As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill."
"I wipe my face with my sleeve, laughing so hard my stomach hurts. If my entire life is like this, loud laughter and bold action and the kind of exhaustion you feel after a hard but satisfying day, I will be content."
"The jostling of young minds against each other has this wonderful attribute, that one can never foresee the spark, nor predict the flash. What will spring up in a moment? Nobody knows."
"The world of men show like a comedy without laughter: populations, interests, government, history; 't is all toy figures in a toyhouse."
"The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter."
"What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company."
"Ada girl, adored girl, [...] I'm a radiant void. I'm convalescing after a long and dreadful illness. You cried over my unseemly scar, but now life is going to be nothing but love and laughter, and corn in cans. I cannot brood over broken hearts, mine is too recently mended."
"... in the happy laughter of a theatre audience one can get the most immediate and numerically impressive guarantee that there is nothing in one's mind which is not familiar to the mass of persons living at the time."
"Laughter means sympathy."
"The person who cannot laugh is not only ready for treason, and deceptions, their whole life is already a treason and deception."
"The amount of energy spent laughing at a joke should be directly proportional to the hierarchical status of the joke teller."
"Laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it's love and love alone that really matters."
