We are a nation that has always gone in for the loud laugh, the wow, the yak, the belly laugh, and the dozen other labels for the roll- em-in-the-aisles gagerissimo. This is the kind of laugh that delights actors, directors, and producers, but dismays writers of comedy because it is the laugh that often dies in the lobby. The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.

Thurber, James

17.

Every new time will give its law.

Gorky, Maxim

18.

If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old.

Edgar Watson Howe

19.

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilized music in the world.

Peter Ustinov

20.

Laughter can be more satisfying than honor; more precious than money; more heart-cleansing than prayer.

Rochlin, Harriet

21.

The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms -- hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.

Thurber, James

22.

The more laws, the more offenders.

Fuller, Thomas

23.

If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you grow old.

Howe, Edgar Watson

24.

Laughter is higher than all pain.

Hubbard, Elbert

25.

Laughter -- An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.

Bierce, Ambrose

26.

Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

Twain, Mark

27.

Beware of too much laughter, for it deadens the mind and produces oblivion.

The Talmud

28.

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.

Addison, Joseph

29.

I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has heard me laugh.

Stanhope, Philip Dormer

30.

Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.

Byron, Lord

31.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

Addison, Joseph

32.

Let there be more joy and laughter in your living.

Caddy, Eileen

33.

The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it.

Bill Nye

34.

I can usually judge a fellow by what he laughs at.

Mizner, Wilson

35.

He who laughs best today, will also laugh last.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

36.

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.

Bodett, Tom

37.

Laughter is the closest distance between two people.

Victor Borge

38.

Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.

Cousins, Norman

39.

There is a kind of laughter that sickens the soul. Laughter when it is out of control: when it screams and stamps its feet, and sets the bells jangling in the next town. Laughter in all its ignorance and cruelty. Laughter with the seed of Satan in it. It tramples upon shrines; the belly-roarer. It roars, it yells, it is delirious: and yet it is as cold as ice. It has no humor. It is naked noise and naked malice.

Peake, Mervyn

40.

With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.

Lincoln, Abraham

41.

Laughter is the most healthful exertion.

Hufeland, Christoph Wilhelm

42.

Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

Joseph Addison

43.

You enjoy it more if you can laugh at it.

44.

If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane.

Jimmy Buffett

45.

The truth is, laughter always sounds more perfect than weeping. Laughter flows in a violent riff and is effortlessly melodic. Weeping is often fought, choked, half strangled, or surrendered to with humiliation.

Rice, Anne

46.

There exists a kind of laughter which is worthy to be ranked with the higher lyric emotions and is infinitely different from the twitching of a mean merrymaker.

Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich

47.

Laughing is not always the proof of a mind at ease.

Proverb, French

48.

Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

49.

The flower in the vase smiles, but no longer laughs.

Chazal, Malcolm De

50.

Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can.