Motivational Quotes

Laughter

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

- Thurber, James

Best Quotes about Laughter

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

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

e e cummings

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

People who laugh actually live longer than those who don't laugh. Few persons realize that health actually varies according to the amount of laughter.

Walsh, Dr. James A

You can judge a man by what he laughs at.

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

Franklin, Benjamin

He who laughs best today, will also laugh last.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

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

10.

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

Chrysosatom, St. John

11.

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

Seneca

12.

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

Thurber, James

13.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

14.

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

Larry Gelbart

15.

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

16.

If you can laugh at it then you can live with it

17.

We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.

Agnes Repplier

18.

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

19.

I quickly laugh at everything for fear of having to cry.

Beaumarchais, Pierre De

20.

Total absence of humor renders life impossible.

Colette

21.

We laugh a lot. That's for sure. Sure beats the alternative, doesn't it?

Betty White

22.

Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.

Chaplin, Charlie

23.

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

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

24.

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

Howe, Edgar Watson

25.

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

Stephen King

26.

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

Twain, Mark

27.

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

Eastman, Max

28.

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

29.

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.

Goldsmith, Oliver

30.

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

Bob Newhart

31.

Laughter is higher than all pain.

Hubbard, Elbert

32.

They laugh well who laugh last.

Saying

33.

Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity, but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective that seemingly terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly toward the solution that is certain to come. Never take yourself too seriously.

Mandino, Og

34.

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

Edgar Watson Howe

35.

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

Beaumarchais, Pierre De

36.

Laughter is inner jogging.

Norman Cousins

37.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

38.

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

Addison, Joseph

39.

A good laugh is sunshine in the house.

Thackeray, William M.

40.

Laughter translates into any language.

Graffiti

41.

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

42.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

43.

The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.

Kundera, Milan

44.

Laughter is the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man

Carlyle, Thomas

45.

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