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Quotations about Laughter
Laughter Is a Fine Tonic — Don't Bottle It! ~Placard on the wall at The Pittsburgh Press, 1935
The young ladies tittered and giggled, and the old lady laughed out loud, and the baillie and the other old fellows roared till they were red in the face, the whole mortal time. ~Charles Dickens, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, 1836
I quarrel not with ages — but with man;
Whose life such play and folly seems — for all
Its sweat and agony — that laughter lies
The sole escape from madness...
~Arthur Davison Ficke, Mr. Faust, 1913
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess was why several of us died of tuberculosis. ~Jack Handey, Deeper Thoughts, 1993, deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com
The most wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed. ~Sébastien-Roch Nicolas (Chamfort), translated from French
Laughter saves us... ~James Oppenheim, "Laughter," War and Laughter, 1916
Laughter is simply the happy explosion of cheerfulness, and cheerfulness is our friend and helper when we think we are having trouble. ~Harry C. Milholland, 1935
There is a purifying power in laughter. It is truth in palatable form. It is instant vacation. Seeing the comical side of many situations makes life a great deal easier. It's like riding through life on sensitive springs that ease every jolt. ~Eugene P. Bertin, 1968 [Per QuoteInvestigator.com, this is the earliest known instance of "laughter is an instant vacation" but Bertin might not have been the first.
For one thing, I believe the advancement of mental health involves a paradox: the tie that binds serious attitudinal orientation with humor. So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter. I venture to say that no person is in good health unless he can laugh at himself quietly and privately, noticing where he has over-reached, where his pretensions have been overblown or pedantic. He needs to note where he has been hoodwinked, too sure of himself, too short-sighted, and above all too conceited. ~Gordon W. Allport, "Mental Health: A Generic Attitude," 1964
Lo, sadness flies before the voice of mirth! ~Peyton Short Symmes, "Sonnet to Health," paraphrased from Dr. Johnson's prose translation of Aristogiton's Greek hymn to health
The lark sings because he must,
Man laughs because he is free.
~James Oppenheim, "Laughter," War and Laughter, 1916
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. ~Irish proverb
A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable. ~H.L. Mencken
When you laugh, it is a sign of life and happiness. ~Harry C. Milholland, 1935
Oh, friend... 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. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall — all dance together to the music that he make... ~Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897
Anger drives away the Peace of Men;
Pleasant Laughter calls it back again.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Wrath," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing a laugh within, hurried away. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, George Horace Lorimer, editor, as reprinted in Poor Richard Jr's Almanack, 1906
I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person. ~Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993)
If melancholy breed decay
And moping gather evil,
An honest laugh will scare away
Both doctors — and the Devil.
~Charles Searle, Look Here!, 1885
For one seldom hears a genuine laugh nowadays, and much of the phraseology of laughter is a mere fashion of speech. There are many people whose sides have never ached from over-indulgence in the outward expression of mirth.... With some persons a wheeze or a chuckle is the utmost they can compass. ~"Laughter," in The Spectator for the week ending Saturday, January 19, 1889
Some men laugh habitually in falsetto.... We remember once to have heard a feminine laugh so painfully and regularly tuneful that it could literally have been reduced to musical notation. ~"Laughter," in The Spectator for the week ending Saturday, January 19, 1889
They let their laughs bounce back and forth between them. ~Caron Levis, Ida, Always, 2016
Laughter is the soul's health, moroseness is its poison. ~James Henry Potts, "Laugh and Live Long," Every Life a Delight, 1914
Since then I've had no need to go
I feel in harmony... Rippling through my body and across my face is something that feeds like laughter — not huge laughter — gently tickling laughter, featherlike. ~Barry Fox Stevens (1902–1985), Don't Push the River (it flows by itself), 1970
Of course, some teen-age laughter is the result of sheer excess of energy. Consider the closely related problem of giggling. Two fourteen-year-old girls in a classroom can keep each other amused almost indefinitely just by exchanging covert glances. Three girls in a group can readily reduce themselves to semi-hysteria and can produce laughter of the sort that television considers valuable enough to record on tape for further use. ~Gerald Raftery, "In Defense of Teen-Age Humor," in The Clearing House, May 1960
To laughter! The bright coinage of the bank of good will. ~Minna Thomas Antrim, A Book of Toasts, 1902
Watching a child's laughter teach a candle's flame how to dance. ~Dr. SunWolf, professorsunwolf.com
Whoever said "laughter is the best medicine" never had gonorrhea. ~Kat Likkel and John Hoberg, My Name Is Earl, "Robbed a Stoner Blind," original airdate 16 November 2006
A pretty judge of soul, he, to be sure! a man that never laughed! ~Emily Chubbuck Judson
...till our time laughter was low. Our dull forefathers had no notion of its intellectual meaning and reach. ~Stephen Leacock, The Garden of Folly, 1924
Not through wrath but through laughter one slayeth. ~Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), "Of Reading and Writing," Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, translated from the German by Alexander Tille, 1896
When you are jovial, your health is good. Laughter is the greatest of all physical exercise. A good, real, unrestrained, hearty laugh is a sort of glorified internal massage, performed rapidly and automatically. It manipulates and revitalizes corners and unexplored crannies of the system that are unresponsive to most other exercise methods. There is not the remotest corner or little inlet of the minute blood vessels that does not feel some wavelet from the convulsion caused by good, hearty laughter.
"Laughter," says Dr. Hudeland, "is an external expression of joy: It is the most salutary of all bodily movements, for it agitates both the body and the soul at the same time, promotes digestion, circulation and perspiration and enlivens the vital power in every organ."
Laugh every day. If you can't do it naturally, do it as a matter of duty, or conscience. Laugh without cause and the cause will come. If you can't laugh, smile. A smile is a young laugh, a bud of a laugh, a laugh in the kindergarten stage of development.
Let us have more robust, full-blooded, whole-souled, clean laughter of the kind that a man can share with his family as he would a pie — laughter that lapses into a long trail of reminiscent chuckles like the faint dying away of an echo. ~New York Tribune, 1922
Laughter... a tranquilizer with no side effects. ~Arnold H. Glasow (1905–1999)
Laughter, last of the gods,
And of them the greatest,
Yes, say I, and salute you!
~James Oppenheim, "Laughter," War and Laughter, 1916
...laughing themselves silly with joy... ~Frances Frost, Little Fox, 1952
Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety, — all this rust of life ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth... A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, in which one is caused disagreeably to jolt by every pebble over which it runs. A man with mirth is like a chariot with springs, in which one can ride over the roughest road, and scarcely feel anything but a pleasant rocking motion. ~Henry Ward Beecher
Laugh easily, that people will know what it means when you're not laughing. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Next to a soul-stirring prayer is a genuine laugh... ~James Henry Potts, "Laugh and Live Long," Every Life a Delight, 1914
If I were only dafter
I might be making hymns
To the liquor of your laughter...
~Emanuel Morgan (Witter Bynner), "Opus 6," Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments, 1916 [farce
Laughter is therapy, be you the laugher or the laughee. ~Jack Runninger, O.D., F.A.A.O. (1923–2017), "Editorial Comment: The Therapy of Laughter," Southern Journal of Optometry, July 1977 [Dr William John Runninger was known as "the Mark Twain of Optometry," being also a witty newspaper columnist.
A laugh is a smile that bursts. ~Mary H. Waldrip, in Dawson County, Ga., Advertiser, as quoted by The Reader's Digest, 1990
Every time you make a man LAUGH you take a kink out of the chain of life, and thus lengthen his stay here in this old troublesome world. ~Josh Billings, revised by H. Montague
Life is a vale of tears in which there are moments you just can't stop giggling. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
We do have a zeal for laughter in most situations, give or take a dentist. ~Joseph Heller, as quoted in The Reader's Digest, 1996
Perhaps I know best why it is that man is the only animal who laughs: he alone suffers so deeply that he was compelled to invent laughter. The unhappiest and most melancholy animal is, as you may expect, the most cheerful. ~Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
LADY FREDERICK BEROLLES: Ha, ha, ha.
MR. PARADINE FOULDES: Ho, ho, ho.
~W. Somerset Maugham, Lady Frederick, 1907
He! he! — he! he! he! — he! he!... He! he! — he! he! he! — he! he!... He! he! — he! he! he! — he! he!... ~Estil Critchie, "Thus Spake the Prophetess," in Weird Tales: The Unique Magazine, 1924
Ho ho, ha ha, hee hee, ha ha,
ho ho, ha ha, hee hee, ha ha,
ho ho, ha ha, hee hee, ha ha,
ho ho, ha ha, oooooooohhh!
~Mike Condello (1946–1995), The Wallace & Ladmo Show theme song, Commodore Condello's Salt River Navy Band,
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