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Quotes about laughter

44 quotes from 38 people

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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. Auden1907–1973The Dyer’s Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
- Love
The salvation of the world depends on the men who will not take evil good-humouredly, and whose laughter destroys the fool instead of encouraging him.
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Quintessence Of Ibsenism (1891; 1913)
- Good & Evil
Laughter, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.
J. M. Barrie1860–1937Peter Pan (1911), Peter and Wendy (1911), Ch. 3In context
- Children
The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news.
Bertolt Brecht1898–1956“To Those Born Later”, part of the Svendborg Poems (1939)
Sudden Glory, is the passion which maketh those Grimaces called LAUGHTER.
Thomas Hobbes1588–1679Leviathan (1651), Part I, Ch. 6In context
No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.
Milan Kundera1929–2023The Joke (1967), Pt. 6, ch. 18
You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time⁠—of anything. If you’re laughing, I defy you to be afraid.
Stephen Colbertborn 1964Parade interview (23 September 2007)
- Fear
Some things are of that nature as to make
One’s fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache.
John Bunyan1628–1688The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part II (1684), verse preface “The Author’s Way of Sending Forth His Second Part of the Pilgrim”
- Emotion
The most completely wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed.
Nicolas Chamfort1740–1794Maximes et pensées (1805)
All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land.
Jack Kerouac1922–1969Pomes All Sizes (1992)
I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep.
Pierre Beaumarchais1732–1799Le Barbier de Séville (1773), Act I, sc. ii (Figaro). Harbottle and Dalbiac (1904) p. 63
I’m struck by how laughter connects you with people. It’s almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you’re just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force for democracy.
John Cleeseborn 1939From The Human Face, BBC Television (2001)
- Democracy
Never laugh when you’re being sarcastic. It will ruin the effect.
Scott Adams1957–2026The Joy of Work (1998)
- Humor
To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs.
Sri Aurobindo1872–1950Sri Aurobindo: The Hour of God, and Other Writings (1970)
- God