Thomas Hobbes on laughter

The Value or WORTH of a man, is as of all other things, his Price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his Power…

For such Truth as opposeth no man’s profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome.

So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Mark Twain1835–1910“The Chronicle of Young Satan” (ca. 1897–1900, unfinished), published posthumously in Mark Twain’s Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (1969), ed. William Merriam Gibson (pp. 165–166 in the 2005 paperback printing, )

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.

Victor Hugo1802–1885

You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

Stephen Kingborn 1947