Do you know of any quotations about laughter?

Question

I actually do know quite a few, but for this specific project for English, we need to choose a quote by

Ralph Waldo Emerson or Henry David Thoreau...

If you know of any quotes these two men have said about LaUgHtEr, I would appreciate you sending the info my way! Thanks everyone!

Answer 1

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
Henry David Thoreau, "Walden", 1854

Not exactly laughter, but:
The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Answer 2

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose. ~Woody Allen

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

Even if there is nothing to laugh about, laugh on credit. ~Author Unknown

Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis. ~Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts," Saturday Night Live

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. ~e.e. cummings

Laughter is an instant vacation. ~Milton Berle

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. ~Victor Borge

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

What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul. ~Yiddish Proverb

When people are laughing, they're generally not killing each other. ~Alan Alda

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. ~Kurt Vonnegut

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. ~Irish Proverb

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

A hearty laugh gives one a dry cleaning, while a good cry is a wet wash. ~Puzant Kevork Thomajan

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

I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain't that the truth." ~Quincy Jones

Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks. ~Henri Bergson

Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. What puts man in a higher state of evolution is that he has got his laugh on the right end. ~Max Eastman

A man isn't poor if he can still laugh. ~Raymond Hitchcock

Remember, men need laughter sometimes more than food. ~Anna Fellows Johnston

No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad. ~Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Book I, chapter 4

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants. ~Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis

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

Whoever said "laughter is the best medicine" never had gonorrhea. ~Kat Likkel and John Hoberg, Robbed a Stoner Blind, original air date 16 November 2006

Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing. ~Ken Kesey

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. ~Victor Hugo

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

We do have a zeal for laughter in most situations, give or take a dentist. ~Joseph Heller

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Laughter is higher than all pain.
-- Elbert Hubbard

We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh." -- Agnes Repplier

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

"You can't stay mad at somebody who makes you laugh." -- Jay Leno

"He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh." -- Koran

One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.
-H. L. Mencken

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. - Mark Twain

That is the best -- to laugh with someone because you think the same things are funny. - Gloria Vanderbilt

Answer 3

I don't know of a quote by Thoreau or Emerson about laughter, but these are pretty good:

"Nobody ever died of laughter."
-Max Beerbohm

"Laughter is the shortest distance between two people."
-Victor Borge

"Laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly."
-Thomas Hobbes

"Perhaps I know why it is man alone who laughs: He alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Answer 4

"Laughter is the best medicine"

Answer 5

laugh and the whole world laughs with you