Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act.

Wit enables us to act rudely with impunity.

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

It is easy to distinguish between the joking that reflects good breeding and that which is coarse—the one, if aired at an apposite moment of mental relaxation, is becoming in the most serious of men, whereas the other is unworthy of any free person, if the content is indecent or the expression obscene.

Jests and scoffs do lessen majesty and greatness and should be far from great personages and men of wisdom.

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

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

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.

Jokes are grievances.

Big head, little wit.

There is nothing sillier than a silly laugh.

I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?”

A jest breaks no bones.