Laughter

[Advice from one cat to another:] If you have committed any kind of an error and anyone scolds you -- wash. If you slip and fall off something and somebody laughs at you -- wash. If somebody calls you and you don't care to come and still don't wish to make it a direct insult -- wash. Something hurt you? Wash it. ~~ Paul Gallico

When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a good many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative. ~~ H. L. Mencken

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

Laughter is like changing a baby's diaper -- it doesn't permanently solve any problems, but it makes things more acceptable for a while. ~~ Unattributed

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God. ~~ Karl Barth

There is always a secret irritation about a laugh into which we cannot join. ~~ Agnes Repplier

Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects. ~~ Arnold Glasgow

He who laughs most, learns best. ~~ John Cleese

You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing. ~~ Michale Pritchard

Life does not cease to be funny when people die, any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. ~~ George Bernard Shaw

If you can't laugh, you're dead. I'm laughing all the time -- you just never catch it. ~~ Robert Mitchum

God laughs, it seems, because God knows how it all turns out in the end. ~~ Harvey Cox

LAUGH: The one step program. ~~ Unattributed

To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity. ~~ William Arthur Ward

There can never be enough said of the virtues, the dangers, the power of a shared laugh. ~~ Francoise Sagan

Beware of those who laugh at nothing or everything. ~~ Arnold H. Glasow

A laugh is a smile that bursts. ~~ Mary H. Waldrip

One is healthy when one can laugh at the earnestness and zeal with which one has been hypnotized by any single detail of one's life. ~~ Friedrich Nietzsche

To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter. ~~ Francoise Sagan

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

And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
This that I may not weep. ~~ George Gordon, Lord Byron

Earth laughs in flowers. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. ~~ Erma Bombeck

Humor must have its background of seriousness. Without this contrast there comes none of that incongruity which is the mainspring of laughter. ~~ Max Beerbohm

When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him. ~~ Thomas Szasz

The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for 5 seconds and think for 10 minutes. ~~ William Davis

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. ~~ H. L. Mencken

Over the years, I have encountered a surprising number of instances in which, to all appearances, patients have laughed themselves back to health, or at least have used their sense of humor as a very positive and adaptive response to their illness. ~~ Raymond A. Moody, Jr., MD

Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that's a real treat. ~~ Joanne Woodward

Down in the bottom of my childhood my father stands laughing. ~~ Tove Ditlevsen

Laughter is a powerful tool in a powerless situation. ~~ Allen Klein

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh. ~~ W. H. Auden

A good laugh is sunshine in a house. ~~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth. ~~ Umberto Eco

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

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings. ~~ Helen Hayes

Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died. ~~ Peter Ustinov

The ceaseless twinkling laughter of the waves of the sea. ~~ Aeschylus

A smile is the whisper of a laugh. ~~ Unattributed

If you can neither accept it or change it, try to laugh at it. ~~ Ashleigh Brilliant

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone. Laugh alone and they lock you up. ~~ Steve Kissell

Cats are a tonic, they are a laugh, they are a cuddle, they are at least pretty just about all of the time and beautiful some of the time. ~~ Roger Caras

Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can. ~~ Elsa Maxwell

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh -- at yourself. ~~ Ethel Barrymore

The reason that there are so few women comics is that so few women can bear being laughed at. ~~ Anna Russell

One loses so many laughs by not laughing at oneself. ~~ Sara Jeannette Duncan

It will help us and our children if we can laugh at our faults. It will help us tolerate our shortcomings and it will help our children see that the goal is to be human, not perfect. ~~ Neil Kurshan

Where is home? Home is where the heart can laugh without shyness. Home is where the heart's tears can dry at their own pace. ~~ Vernon G. Baker

The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed. ~~ Nicolas Chamfort

I think you should always laugh in bed -- people always laugh at me when I'm in bed. ~~ Boy George

The head thinks, the hands labor, but it is the heart that laughs. ~~ Liz Curtis-Higgs

If we have experienced loss -- the loss of friends, loved ones, financial security, dreams, or faith -- we desperately need that healing humor that comes from the deep common bonds we all share. We need what Garrison Keillor describes as that chuckle that starts deep within. We need the laughter that is so very close to tears -- our other great healing agent. We need to remember that only if we can laugh at ourselves, can we forgive ourselves (for being so human) and start over -- and over. ~~ Ellie Marek

It is easy to forget that the most important aspect of comedy, after all, its great saving grace, is its ambiguity. You can simultaneously laugh at a situation, and take it seriously. ~~ Stephen Fry

Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh. ~~ Katharine Hepburn

The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool. ~~ George Santayana

Laughter is man's most distinctive emotional expression. ~~ Margaret Mead

If you're not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there. ~~ Martin Luther

The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder. ~~ Virginia Woolf

God, grant me peace in my heart, serenity in my soul, and laughter on my face. ~~ Unattributed

The creator made man able to do everything -- talk, run, look and hear. He was not satisfied, though, until man could do just one thing more -- and that was: laugh. And so man laughed and laughed. And the creator said, "Now you are fit to live." ~~ Apache Myth

Ever notice how in the movies, after a big scare or good cry, a gut-busting laugh occurs soon after? It's called comic relief. Laughter discharges pent-up tension. And laughing at ourselves provides respite from the pain. ~~ Jann Mitchell

I think we're losing our sense of humor instead of being able to relax and laugh at ourselves. I don't care whether it's ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, or whose ox is being gored. ~~ Betty White

So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter. ~~ Gordon W. Allport

Oh, come on. If you can't laugh at the walking dead, who can you laugh at? ~~ Dan Fielding

Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. ~~ Max Eastman

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 have been. ~~ William Hazlitt

All you earnest young men out to save the world … please, have a laugh. ~~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused. ~~ Unattributed

We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can. ~~ Will Rogers

You see a girl a couple of times a week, just for laughs, and right away they think you're going to divorce your wife. Now I ask you, is that fair?

No sir, it's very unfair -- especially to your wife. ~~ The Apartment [film, 1960]

There comes a time when suddenly you realize that laughter is something you remember and that you were the one laughing. ~~ Marlene Dietrich

A morning kiss [from my cat], a discreet touch of his nose landing somewhere on the middle of my face. Because his long white whiskers tickled, I began every day laughing. ~~ Janet F. Faure

He who laughs last is generally the last to get the joke. ~~ Terry Cohen

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. ~~ Carl Sagan

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh. ~~ Robert Heinlein

That which we remember of our conduct is ignored by our closest neighbor; but that which we have forgotten having said, or even what we never said, will cause laughter even into the next world. ~~ Marcel Proust

When the mouse laughs at the cat there's a hole nearby. ~~ Nigerian proverb

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find his own. ~~ Logan Pearsall Smith

Conversation with someone at whose joke you have heartily laughed without seeing the point is apt to become precarious. ~~ Elizabeth Bowen

She had a penetrating sort of laugh. Rather like a train going into a tunnel. ~~ P. G. Wodehouse

Strange, when you come to think of it, that of all the countless folk who have lived before our time on this planet not one is known in history or in legend as having died of laughter. ~~ Sir Max Beerbohm

At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. ~~ Jean Houston

Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. ~~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas … just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man. ~~ Fyodor Dostoyevski

To err is human; to refrain from laughing, humane. ~~ Lane Olinghouse

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. ~~ Mark Twain

If the world laughs at you, laugh right back -- it's as funny as you are. ~~ Unattributed

We are able to laugh when we achieve detachment, if only for a moment. ~~ May Sarton

My life has been one great big joke
A dance that's walked
A song that's spoke,
I laugh so hard I almost choke
When I think about myself. ~~ Maya Angelou

You can turn painful situations through laughter. If you can find humor in anything -- even poverty -- you can survive it. ~~ Bill Cosby

I believe that play is the beginning of creativity. I believe that laughter is the only cure for grief and fear. I believe that humor is the bond that can unite us all. ~~ Ellie Marek

Laughing together can be a time of intimacy and communion, a time when we come forward, fully present and touch into each other's humanness and vulnerability. By joining in humor and acknowledging our oneness, we can have a profound experience of unity and cooperation. That in itself may be one of the most profound expressions of healing energy of which we are capable. ~~ Barry Sultanhoff, MD

Once you get people laughing, they're listening and you can tell them almost anything. ~~ Herbert Gardner

It is better to weep with wise men than to laugh with fools. ~~ Unattributed

The vices we scoff at in others, laugh at us within ourselves. ~~ Thomas Browne

If your cat falls out of a tree, go indoors to laugh. ~~ Patricia Hitchcock

It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems. This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry--or laugh. ~~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

I laugh about everything for fear of crying. ~~ Beaumarchais [Pierre-Augustin Caron]

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children. ~~ Kahlil Gibran

[On Australia:] Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest. ~~ Douglas Jerrold

[After her mastectomy:] The part of me that is missing didn't think, laugh, or contribute a single thing to this planet. Without a breast, I still form coherent sentences and intelligent opinions. I defy anyone to read my columns and tell me which ones were written by a single-breasted writer. ~~ Erma Bombeck

Shared laughter is like family glue. It is the stuff of family well-being and all-is-well thoughts. It brings us together as few other things can. ~~ Valerie Bell

Laughter is much more important than applause. Applause is almost a duty. Laughter is a reward. ~~ Carol Channing

It is a fact of life that we find ourselves in unpleasant demoralizing situations which we can neither escape nor control. We can keep our morale and spirits high by using both "coping" and "hoping" humor. Coping humor laughs at the hopelessness in our situation. It gives us the courage to hang in there, but it does not bring hope. The uniqueness of hoping humor lies in its acceptance of life with all its dichotomies, contradictions, and incongruities. It celebrates the hope in human life. From one comes courage, from the other comes inspiration. ~~ Cy Eberhart

Humor is the prelude to faith, and laughter is the beginning of prayer. ~~ Reinhold Niebuhr

I live by this credo: Have a little laugh at life and look around you for happiness instead of sadness. Laughter has always brought me out of unhappy situations. Even in your darkest moment, you usually can find something to laugh about if you try hard enough. ~~ Red Skelton (see Said Who?)

If it's sanity you're after
There's no recipe like
Laughter.
Laugh it off. ~~ Henry Rutherford Elliot

Mothers are not the nameless, faceless stereotypes who appear once a year on a greeting card with their virtues set in prose, but women who have been dealt a hand for life and play each card one at a time the best way they know how. No mother is all good or all bad, all laughing or all serious, all loving or all angry. Ambivalence rushes through their veins. ~~ Erma Bombeck

What I want to do is make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously. ~~ William K. Zinsser

The oddest thing about this whole funny business is that the public really wants to laugh, but it's the hardest thing to make them do it. They don't want to cry, yet they will cry at the slightest provocation. ~~ Harry Langdon

God is a child who amuses himself, going from laughing to crying for no reason, each day reinventing the world to the chagrin of hair-splitters, pedants, and preachers, who try to teach God his job as Creator. ~~ Elie Faure

If you can laugh together, you can work together. ~~ Robert Orben