Smile Quotes
Shakespeare, Byron, Lord Chesterfield, John Cleese and Milton share the top. Because the topic takes in laughter, the sourced material is dry. Bierce, in 1911, defines laughter as an interior convulsion producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. Mencken, in 1949, defines a creator as a comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh. Einstein, in 1953, warns that whoever sets himself up as a judge of truth is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
Three popular lines are marked misattributed. “A day without laughter is a day wasted” is credited to Charlie Chaplin, and the notes quote an older and longer passage making the same point. “Remember me with smiles and laughter” is credited to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and a poem about the thing that goes the farthest toward making life worthwhile, a smile, to Wilbur D. Nesbit.
I remember it so clearly —
how people, seeing me, would break off in midword.
Laughter died.
The apartheid government was frightened of ridicule. Everyone is frightened of laughter.
“Now here’s to many more years filled with love, laughter, and adventure..."
[I]t would be a pity if laughter should ever become, like rhetoric and the arts, a habit.
[T]he sense of humour has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter.