Margaret Mead Quotes

To laugh is proper to man.

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.

Existence loves laughter. You may have observed, or not, that man is the only animal in the whole of existence who is capable of laughing. Laughter is the only distinguishing mark that you are not a buffalo, you are not a donkey; you are a human being. Laughter defines your humanity and your evolution. And the greatest laugh is at your own ridiculous things.

Do you know what laughter is? I'll tell you. It's God's mistake. When God made man in order to bend him to his wishes he carelessly gave him the gift of laughter.

...this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate.

When there's characters out there that don't have humor, I don't find them as believable, because we all have humor, no matter what level it is, we all use it every day, no matter what situation we're in, we'll try and have a bit of a laugh even if it goes wrong.

Laughter is an independent, tremendously important, and lurid emotion.

Laughter is more serious than tears.

It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it . . . so I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you're done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent.

Laughter went on and on, like sunlight and stone, even if the human beings who laughed did not.

I have always loved both drama and comedy.

A life based on reason will always require to be balanced by an occasional bout of violent and irrational emotion, for instinctual drives must be satisfied

I think for me, any great art is art which communicates human emotion.

Comedy doesn't come easy for me. I've only done 2 movies that are really comedy-style films and I have to work at them. And they're just as scary in a way. I hate labeling all these things; comedy, love stories, dark drama, whatever.

Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh.

I do not often laugh, sir, as you may perceive by the air of my countenance; but nevertheless, I retain the privilege of laughing when I please.

Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.

Laughter is the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man

What I do for a living is re-create human emotion, and that's a pretty weird thing to do from nine till five.

Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature: delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling.

Laughter... the most civilized music in the world.

A little humour is good for the soul - regardless of how old you may be.

Comedy is the blues for people who can’t sing.

The mad also laugh, or is that what Freud and the others discovered perhaps, that only the mad laugh?

To be able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things that make man better than the beast