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Quotes

Jokes are grievances.

—Marshall McLuhan, 1969

Big head, little wit.

—French proverb

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

—Philip Sidney, 1582

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.

—Cicero, c. 44 BC

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

—Voltaire, 1736
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