The Wonderful Paradox of Laughter

Have you ever laughed at another persons folly while they were cringing? How many times have you felt the sting of laughter as well as the sweetness of it? How is it that responses to the same situation can be so different in the people participating? Might it have something to do with perception? Imagine people laughing at you after you’ve tripped over you own feet and you’re lying hurt on the floor. What’s the paradox? How does perspective change perception?

I’ve collected some quotes about this paradox for you to read, mark, learn from and inwardly digest. Rather than me explaining the paradox, you can discover it for yourself. In this discovery you might come to see laughter differently. You might begin to see that many things we take for granted need further enlightenment. What might seem funny to one might be offensive to another. Ultimately, the real joke is always on us. We simply don’t get it . . .

“Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.”

-Veronica Roth-

“If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.”

-Robert Frost-

“I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilized music in the world.”

-Peter Ustinov-

“Humor is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer.”

-Reinhold Neibuhr-

“If you would not be laughed at, be the first to laugh at yourself.”

-Benjamin Franklin-

“God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”

-Voltaire-

“At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.”

-Jean Houston-

“As soon as you have made a thought, laugh at it.”

-Lao Tsu-

“Laughter is wine for the soul: laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness; the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living”

-Sean O Casey-

“I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone.”

-Nikolai Gogol-

Eleven diverse quotes on ‘Laughter.’ What have you learned? What conclusions have you come to about how you participate in this paradox? How might you change to create a more harmonious environment for yourself and others? it’s always a two way street, a both/and.  It’s about learning to be less sensitive and more sensitive. Hmm. Another paradox. Get the joke?