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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.

Random quote on Smile

Most quoted on smile:

Laughter is by definition healthy.

Doris Lessing The Summer Before the Dark (1973)

Laughter is man's most distinctive emotional expression. Man shares the capacity for love and hate, anger and fear, loyalty and grief, with other living creatures. But humour, which has an intellectual as well as an emotional element belongs to man.

Margaret Mead Margaret Mead: Some Personal Views (1979)

My appearance still made people laugh, with that hearty jovial laugh so good for the health.

Samuel Beckett The End (1946)

Chaplin made me laugh and cry without saying a word. I had an instinct. I was touched by the soul of Chaplin — Mime is not an imitator but a creator.

Marcel Marceau

That was all he ever really wanted from women; a smile, a dance, a kiss, and to be remembered fondly.

Robert Jordan The Fires of Heaven (1993)

Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh what were man? — a world without a sun.

Thomas Campbell The Pleasures of Hope (1799)

Burton sighed, laughed loudly, and said, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” Another fairy tale to give men hope. The old religions have been discredited — although some refuse to face even that fact — so new ones must be invented.”

Philip José Farmer To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)

Laughter is America's most important export.

Walt Disney EPCOT promotional film (1966)

My mother ... had a wonderful sense of humor, and I learned from her that the highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.

Richard Feynman What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)

Give a smile to everyone you meet (smile with your eyes) — and you’ll smile and receive smiles...

W. Clement Stone

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!

Hilaire Belloc

We have only love,
to help us find our way,
as we go out into the world.
So... like laughing children we’ll go
singing love wherever we go.

Rod McKuen

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits, and you will pass for a fine man.

William Hazlitt

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Langston Hughes

You're the smile
On the Mona Lisa.

Cole Porter Anything Goes (1934)

Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club (1989)

If evolution was worth its salt, it should've evolved something better than "survival of the fittest." I think a better idea would be "survival of the wittiest." At least, that way, creatures that didn't survive could've died laughing.

Lily Tomlin The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)

Brood less, smile more and serve all.

Chinmayananda Saraswati

The mirrors have seen much laughter and tears laughter and tears Reflected in the mirrors are our fragile lives our lives The mirrors have seen much laughter and tears laughter and tears.

Irina Allegrova

There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o’ the world; oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poems (1844)

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