laughter and humor

Laughter lifts us over high ridges and lights up dark valleys
in a way that makes life so much easier.  It is a priceless gem,
a gift of release and healing direct from Heaven.

Alan Cohen

Whatever it is probably won't go away, so we might as well live and laugh
through it.  When we double over laughing, we're bending so we won't break.
If you think your particular troubles are too heavy and too traumatic to
laugh about, remember that laughing is like changing a baby's diaper.
It doesn't solve any problems permanently, but it makes
things more acceptable for awhile.

Barbara Johnson

Of all the things God created, I am often most grateful He created laughter.

Charles Swindoll

Always laugh when you can; it is cheap medicine.
Merriment is a philosophy not well understood.
It is the sunny side of existence.

Lord Byron

Laughter can relieve tension, soothe the pain of disappointment,
and strengthen the spirit for the formidable tasks that always lie ahead.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

We know the degree of refinement in people by
the matter they laugh at and the ring of the laugh.

George Meredith

Rabbi Baroka

A clown may be the first in the kingdom of heaven, 
if he or she has helped lessen the sadness of human life.

The most valuable sense of humor is the kind that
enables a person to see instantly what it isn't safe to laugh at.

Anon

Marilyn Meberg

The young person who has not wept is a savage, 
and the old one who will not laugh is a fool.

George Santayana

From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.

Hillaire Belloc

I have known sorrow--therefore I
May laugh with you, O friend, more merrily
Than those who never sorrowed upon earth
And know not laughter's worth.

I have known laughter--therefore I
May sorrow with you far more tenderly
Than those who never guess how sad a thing
Seems merriment to one heart's suffering.

Theodosia Garrison

Teach us delight in simple things,
And Mirth that has no bitter springs;
Forgiveness free of evil done,
And Love to all men 'neath the sun.

Rudyard Kipling

Humor is a prelude to faith and
Laughter is the beginning of prayer.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Humans are the only animal that laughs and weeps;
for they are the only animal that is struck
with the difference between what things are
and what they might have been.

William Hazlitt

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

Shared laughter creates a bond of friendship.  When people laugh together,
they cease to be young and old, master and pupils, worker and driver.
They have become a single group of human beings, enjoying their existence.

W. Grant Lee

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.

Max Beerbohm

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Giacomo Leopardi

Those who have the courage to laugh
are almost as much the master of the world
as those who are ready to die.

Laughter is the language of the soul.

Pablo Neruda

It better befits us to laugh at life than to lament over it.

Seneca

I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter:  it has made
the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.

W.E.B. DuBois