Lapham’s Quarterly

Wit enables us to act rudely with impunity.

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

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.

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

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

A jest breaks no bones.

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

Big head, little wit.

Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act.

There is nothing sillier than a silly laugh.

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.

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

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

Jokes are grievances.

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

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.

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