Motivational Quotes

Laughter

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

Best Quotes about Laughter

I want someone to laugh with me, someone to be grave with me, someone to please me and help my discrimination with his or her own remark, and at times, no doubt, to admire my acuteness and penetration.

Burns, Robert

I am persuaded that every time a man smiles, but much more so when he laughs, it adds something to this fragment of life.

Sterne, Laurence

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent relieves we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life.

Chazal, Malcolm De

Total absence of humor renders life impossible.

Colette

The burden of the self is lightened with I laugh at myself.

Tagore, Rabindranath

He who laughs best today, will also laugh last.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Laughter is the closest distance between two people.

Victor Borge

A good laugh is sunshine in the house.

Thackeray, William M.

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 might of been.

Hazlitt, William

10.

One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you.

Larry Gelbart

11.

Him, who incessantly laughs in the street, you may commonly hear grumbling in his closet.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

12.

A hearty laugh gives one a dry cleaning, while a good cry is a wet wash.

Thomajan, Puzant Kevork

13.

There is a form of laughter that springs from the heart, heard every day in the merry voice of childhood, the expression of a laughter -- loving spirit that defies analysis by the philosopher, which has nothing rigid or mechanical in it, and totally without social significance. Bubbling spontaneously from the heart of child or man. Without egotism and full of feeling, laughter is the music of life.

Osler, Sir William

14.

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

Bodett, Tom

15.

I always knew I would look back at the times I'd cried and laugh, but I never knew that I'd look back at the times I'd laughed and cry.

Prowdzik, Shaun

16.

If you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may say with confidence that he is a good man.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

17.

One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.

Mencken, H. L.

18.

Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods.

Proverb, Japanese

19.

I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep.

Beaumarchais, Pierre De

20.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

21.

Laughter is the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man

Carlyle, Thomas

22.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

23.

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

24.

She laughs at everything you say. Why? Because she has fine teeth.

Franklin, Benjamin

25.

No one is more profoundly sad as one who laughs too much.

Paul, Jean

26.

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

Proverb, French

27.

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

Seneca

28.

Most of the appearance of mirth in the world is not mirth, it is art. The wounded spirit is not seen, but walks under a disguise.

South, Bishop Robert

29.

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.

Bob Newhart

30.

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

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

31.

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

The Talmud

32.

Laughter does not seem to be a sin, but it leads to sin.

Chrysosatom, St. John

33.

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.

Maugham, W. Somerset

34.

The shortest distance between two people is laughter.

35.

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

Chazal, Malcolm De

36.

Let there be more joy and laughter in your living.

Caddy, Eileen

37.

It is easier to make people cry than to make them laugh.

38.

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

39.

Laughter kills fear, and without fear there can be no faith. For without fear of the devil there is no need for God.

Connery, Sean

40.

Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.

Beecher, Henry Ward

41.

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

Bill Nye

42.

What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.

Johnson, Samuel

43.

Laughter is, after speech, the chief thing that holds society together.

Eastman, Max

44.

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

45.

Observe it, the vulgar often laugh, but never smile, whereas well-bred people often smile, and seldom or never laugh. A witty thing never excited laughter, it pleases only the mind and never distorts the countenance.

Chesterfield, Lord

46.

Laughter is inner jogging.

Norman Cousins

47.

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

Jimmy Buffett

48.

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

Byron, Lord

49.

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