There is nothing sillier than a silly laugh.

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

I used to think that everyone was just being funny. But now I don’t know. I mean, how can you tell?

Wit enables us to act rudely with impunity.

Jesters do oft prove prophets.

Big head, little wit.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

A jest breaks no bones.