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Quotes about laughter

44 quotes from 38 people

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The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
Nicolas Chamfort1740–1794Often credited to Charlie Chaplin
The most completely wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed.
Nicolas Chamfort1740–1794Maximes et pensées (1805)
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
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
His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
Charles Dickens1812–1870A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave VIn context
- Happiness
Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832
Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.
Václav Havel1936–2011Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 2: Writing for the Stage
- Humor
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 Hazlitt1778–1830Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)
I have never been able to see life as anything but a vast complicated practical joke, and it’s better to laugh than cry.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988I Will Fear No Evil (1970), Chapter 25, p. 442
- Life & Death
One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.
Hermann Hesse1877–1962Steppenwolf (1927), Harry Haller’s Records (continued) (6 of 6)In context
Sudden Glory, is the passion which maketh those Grimaces called LAUGHTER.
Thomas Hobbes1588–1679Leviathan (1651), Part I, Ch. 6In context
The passion of laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmities of others, or with our own formerly…
Thomas Hobbes1588–1679The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic Pt. I Human Nature (1640) Ch. 9
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
Victor Hugo1802–1885
There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Aubrey Menen, Rama Retold (1954), p. 231
All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land.
Jack Kerouac1922–1969Pomes All Sizes (1992)