There is nothing more distressing ... than the hard, scoffing spirit which treats the allegation of dishonesty in a public man as a cause for laughter. Such laughter is worse than the crackling of thorns under a pot, for it denotes not merely the vacant mind, but the heart in which high emotions have been choked before they could grow to fruition.
I'd like for them to say he took a few cups of love, he took one tablespoon of patience, teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness. He took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern, and then, he mix willingness with happiness, he added lots of faith, and he stirred it up well, then he spreads it over his span of a lifetime, and he served it to each and every deserving person he met.
Humour is but the faint terrestrial echo of the hideous laughter of the blind mad gods that squat leeringly and sardonically in caverns beyond the Milky Way. It is a hollow thing, sweet on the outside, but filled with the pathos of fruitless aspiration.
In a few Zen monasteries, every monk has to start his morning with laughter, and has to end his night with laughter - the first thing and the last thing! You try it. . . For no reason! Because there is no reason. Simply, you are again there, still alive - it is a miracle!
I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart for the joys of the multitude. And I would not have the tears that sadness makes to flow from my every part turn into laughter. I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.
And the small ripple spilt upon the beach Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain! Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,— Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.
Godlike the man who
sits at her side, who
watches and catches
that laughter
which (softly) tears me
to tatters: nothing is left of me, each time
I see her.
That older and greater church to which I belong: the church where the oftener you laugh the better, because by laughter only can you destroy evil without malice
And the small ripple spilt upon the beach Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain! Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,— Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.
He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture. I have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.