Laughter always arises from a gaiety of disposition, absolutely incompatible with contempt and indignation.

A jest breaks no bones.

Jokes are grievances.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act.

Jesters do oft prove prophets.

There is nothing sillier than a silly laugh.

A joke is at most a temporary rebellion against virtue, and its aim is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that he is already degraded.

Big head, little wit.

Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Laughter hath only a scornful tickling.

Wit enables us to act rudely with impunity.

He who laugheth too much, hath the nature of a fool; he that laugheth not at all, hath the nature of an old cat.

No man ever distinguished himself who could not bear to be laughed at.