Lao Tzu Quotes

Comedy exists to laugh at things that aren't laughable. But isn't it? That's what separates us from the animals. We laugh.

Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny.

It's both funny and sad which seem to me to be the two basic ingredients of good comedy.

At the sight of what goes on in the world, the most misanthropic of men must end by being amused, and Heraclitus must die laughing.

The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance.

Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you'll soon laugh for yourself.

Comedy is tragedy revisited.

A buddha laughs too, but his laughter has the quality of a smile. His laughter has the feminine quality of grace. When an ignorant person laughs, his laughter is very aggressive, egoistic. The ignorant person always laughs at others. The contented person, the person who knows life a little, laughs at himself - at the whole play of life itself. It is not addressed to anybody in particular. He just laughs at the absurdity of it all... the impossibility of it all.

When superior people hear of the Way, they carry it out with diligence. When middling people hear of the Way, it sometimes seems to be there, sometimes not. When lesser people hear of the Way, they ridicule it greatly. If they didn't laugh at it, it wouldn't be the Way.

Words spoken about the Way have no taste. When looked at, there's not enough to see. When listened to, there's not enough to hear. When used, it is never exhausted.

Humor is, by its nature, more truthful than factual.

What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!

Anything I shouldn't laugh at makes me laugh.

Laughing at someone else is an excellent way of learning how to laugh at oneself; and questioning what seem to be the absurd beliefs of another group is a good way of recognizing the potential absurdity of many of one's own cherished beliefs.

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

I laugh at weird times - at good and bad things alike. I laugh simply when things are incongruous. It's not necessarily a judgment - as it is noticing the oddity of something.

And what do I mean by the word 'perfection'? That I shall not try to explain but only say, 'Perfection makes me laugh.' Not cynically, I hasten to add, 'With joy.

Everyone is a comedy. If people are laughing at you, they just don't quite understand the joke that is themselves.

Life deserves laughter, hence people laugh at it.

Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite.

This is getting funny, but there ain't nobody laughing.

Just because we can shoot something that looks like a movie doesn't mean we should. Sometimes if something looks too good, it's not funny. Some things need to look good, because we think it's funny that you'd spend so much time and be so precious about such a stupid idea.

Why wait for reasons to laugh? Life as it is should be reason enough to laugh. It is so absurd, it is so ridiculous. It is so beautiful, so wonderful! It is all sorts of things together. It is a great cosmic jokе.

You don't know anything, but I know even less.