Tao Te Ching
Laughter and Humor
Quotes (81)
“When people laughed at him because he walked backward beneath the portico, he said to them: ‘Aren't you ashamed, you who walk backward along the whole path of existence, and blame me for walking backward along the path of the promenade?’”
“To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity.”
“An old lady who lives to the east got rich a few years ago. Before poorer than me,now she mocks my poverty. She laughs that I’m behind, I laugh that she’s ahead. It seems we can’t stop laughing from the east and from the west.”
“When inferior people hear of the Tao, even the ancient sages can’t keep them from laughing. Everyone in the world thinks existence is real. Who wouldn’t shake their head and laugh if they were told that existence wasn’t real and that non-existence was?”
“In the experience of yogins who do not perceive things dualistically, the fact that things manifest without truly existing is so amazing they burst into laughter.”
“I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty… go where you will… if you do not find your soul, the world will be unreal… Go not elsewhere.”
“I have had to endure much, and have only been able to endure it because I have always laughed whenever I had the chance.”
“A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.”
“There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.”
“Those who laugh together become like the waves of the sea… They are no more separate than are two waves.”
“Wit consists in knowing the resemblance of things that differ, and the difference of things that are alike.”
“No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.”
“A human being should be aware of how he laughs, for then he shows all his faults.”
“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new… The head monkey in Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.”
“A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce of a good thing… the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure that there is more in that man than you perhaps think”
“Comedy is in act superior to tragedy and humorous reasoning superior to grandiloquent reasoning.”
“He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.”
“Maintaining cheerfulness in the midst of a gloomy task, fraught with immeasurable responsibility, is no small feat; and yet what is needed more than cheerfulness? Nothing succeeds if prankishness has no part in it.”
“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
“Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.”
“Wit is the best safety valve modern man has evolved; the more civilization, the more repression, the more need there is for wit.”
“Great and wise men have ever loved laughter. The vain, the ignorant, the dishonest, the pretentious, alone have dreaded or despised it.”
“Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.”
“Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.”
“When laughter is humble, when it is not based on self-esteem, it is wiser than tears.”
“The comedy of each age holds up a mirror to the people of that age, a mirror that is unique... Popular comedy reflects the average person.”
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
“When things grow hopelessly complicated, and we can't laugh, we do either one of two things: we lie or we die. But if we can laugh, we can fight! And be honest!”
“I believe—contrary to the fashion among our contemporaries—that one can have a very lofty idea of literature, and at the same time have a good-natured laugh at it.”
“Humor can get in under the door while seriousness is still fumbling at the handle.”
“Eventually all things fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moments, and know everything happens for a reason.”
“Do you believe in this false measure, that laughter is lower than worship?”
“Schopenhauer's saying, that 'a man can do as he will, but not will as he will,' has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralyzing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humor, above all, has its due place.”
“And best (or worst) of all, I grew old during that time, so that now I am a settled and mature old spinster with an opinion on every topic under heaven... I've also acquired... a sense of humor—so that I no longer take myself and my doings seriously...”
“I knew that in this laughter were courage and integrity. Both the old man and my brother turned pale, awed by my courage and integrity.”
“But now and again in the midst of this seriousness there is a smile—All opposites join together, mix, and are reconciled here, creating the supreme miracle, harmony.”
“The selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filed with your tears.”
“I would not exchange the laughter of my heart for the fortunes of the multitudes.”
“If it had been a question of choosing a spiritual guide, a guru, surely I would have chosen Zorba... from Zorba's elderly breast a laugh spurted and demolished all the barriers—morality, religion, homeland—which that wretched poltroon, man, has erected around him in order to hobble with full security through his miserable smidgen of life.”
“a subtle similarity between… wisdom and humor… both may come from seeing things in perspective.”
“Humor is akin to philosophy for they are both viewpoints born of a large perspective of life.”
“And so the first moment [he] put his eyes on her she was laughing and the sunlight fell on her and he saw her like this, her hair shining black and her cheeks red and her lips red and her teeth white and her head throw back in laughter, and he was struck as though a sword had fallen across his heart.”
“This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.”
“The great thing about laughter is laughter itself. Let's not try to explain it.”
“Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy.”
“And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.”
“Laughter—that is something very sacred—especially for us Indians. For people who are as poor as us, who have lost everything, who had to endure so much death and sadness, laughter is a precious gift.”
“Humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.”
“The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.”
“A sense of humor is incompatible with the complete acceptance of any dogma, any religious, political, or economic prescription for salvation. It synthesizes with curiosity, irreverence, and imagination.”
“Guidance, if given at all, should be so subtle that the person concerned doesn’t know he is being guided. Confrontation, to Taoists, is unthinkable… for the Tao is most easily found when laughter comes spontaneously.”
“Isn’t it only through laughter that we become one with the gods and thus can endure life and can overcome all the horror and waste and suffering here on earth? …Isn’t it only through laughter we can stay human?”
“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
“What afflicted people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.”
“At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities”
“There is a big difference between a cynical and a serious joke... enlightened jokes are much lighter because they leave room for wisdom and an acceptance of the past.”
“If you can get humor and seriousness at the same time, you've created a special little thing, and that's what I'm looking for, because if you get pompous, you lose everything.”
“A tragedy is a comedy misunderstood. Once you realize what you are, there's nothing but gratitude and laughter.”
“There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule—that's what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar.”
“Love, friendship, laughter... Some of the best things in life really are free.”
“Recognizing the humor in our situation prevents suffering... If we know that some of our familiar concepts, feelings, and objects exist only in a dream, we develop a much better sense of humor.”
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