Lapham’s Quarterly

Laughter always arises from a gaiety of disposition, absolutely incompatible with contempt and indignation.

I used to think that everyone was just being funny. But now I don’t know. I mean, how can you tell?

No man ever distinguished himself who could not bear to be laughed at.

It is easy to distinguish between the joking that reflects good breeding and that which is coarse—the one, if aired at an apposite moment of mental relaxation, is becoming in the most serious of men, whereas the other is unworthy of any free person, if the content is indecent or the expression obscene.

Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act.

Wit enables us to act rudely with impunity.

Some things are privileged from jest—namely, religion, matters of state, great persons, all men’s present business of importance, and any case that deserves pity.

Jesters do oft prove prophets.

He who laugheth too much, hath the nature of a fool; he that laugheth not at all, hath the nature of an old cat.

I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”

Big head, little wit.

Jokes are grievances.

A jest breaks no bones.

A joke is at most a temporary rebellion against virtue, and its aim is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that he is already degraded.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

Jests and scoffs do lessen majesty and greatness and should be far from great personages and men of wisdom.

There is nothing sillier than a silly laugh.

Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Laughter hath only a scornful tickling.