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Quotes

A jest breaks no bones.

—Samuel Johnson, 1781

Big head, little wit.

—French proverb

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

—Book of Ecclesiastes, 225 BC

Wit enables us to act rudely with impunity.

—La Rochefoucauld, 1678

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
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