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Quotes about laughter

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To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914Epigrams, p. 346
- Humor
When we can begin to take our failures nonseriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.
Katherine Mansfield1888–1923Journal entry (October 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)
- Failure
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
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox1850–1919Solitude (1883)In context
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
Laughter is a basic human need, along with love, and food, and an HBO subscription.
Julia Louis-Dreyfusborn 1961Mark Twain Prize Acceptance Speech (2018)
- Comedy
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?
Jane Austen1775–1817Pride and Prejudice (1813), Volume III, Chapter XVIn context
- Comedy
Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play.
Bram Stoker1847–1912Dracula (1897), Chapter XIIIIn context
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter IIn context
- Friendship
His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
Charles Dickens1812–1870A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave VIn context
- Happiness
The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.
William Makepeace Thackeray1811–1863Vanity Fair (1848), Chapter IIIn context
- Happiness
When a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies.
J. M. Barrie1860–1937Peter Pan (1911), Chapter XVIIIn context
- Children
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
And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
’Tis that I may not weep
Lord Byron1788–1824Don Juan (1819–1824), Canto the FourthIn context