Connect and Heal with Laughter — Quotes to Live By

Dear Giant,

I learned in elementary school that negative emotions cause so much pain, including sicknesses, illnesses, and diseases. I consider this one of the most important things I learned in school.

Those negative emotions can be transformed into laughter, a cure for much of what ails us. I agree that laughter is the best medicine. Connect and heal with laughter. Here are some quotes to live by in support of that:

The Healing Power of Laughter

“Laughter is the best medicine in the world.” – Milton Berle

“No matter what your heartache may be, laughing helps you forget it for a few seconds.” – Red Skelton

“Laughter serves as a blocking agent. Like a bulletproof vest, it may help protect you against the ravages of negative emotions that can assault you in disease.” – Norman Cousins

“Laughter lets me relax. It’s the equivalent of taking a deep breath, letting it out, and saying, “This, too, will pass.”” – Odette Pollar

“Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.” – Victor Hugo

“A good laugh heals (many) hurts.” – Madeleine L’Engle

“A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.” – Phyllis Diller

“Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.” – Henri Bergson

“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.” – Mark Twain

“Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.” – Lord Byron

“Laughter is the best medicine for a long and happy life.” – Wilford Peterson

“Few people realize that health … varies according to the amount of laughter. So does recovery. People who laugh … live longer than those who do not laugh.” – James J. Walsh

“Laughter is the best medicine. Smiling is second.” – Ian Somerhalder

“Laughter is the measurement of happiness.” – Creed McGregor

“Humor is a great way to lighten any atmosphere, and laughing is a surefire way to brighten your outlook.” – J. Fischer

“As soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.” – Jewish Proverb

“Laughter is an instant vacation.” – Milton Berle

“An optimist laughs to forget. A pessimist forgets to laugh.” – Tom Nansbury

“I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable.” – Victor Frankl

Laughter: The Ultimate Connector

“Laughter connects you with people. It’s almost impossible to maintain … distance or … social hierarchy when you’re … howling with laughter.” – John Cleese

“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” – Victor Borge

“Laughter is the foundation of reconciliation.” – St. Francis de Sales

“Among those … I love, I can (find a common denominator): all of them make me laugh.” – W.H. Auden

“We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.” – Agnes Repplier

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.” – Mark Twain

“Each of us has a spark of life inside us, and our highest endeavor ought to be to set off that spark in one another.” – Kenny Ausubel

“It was the way you laughed… I knew I wanted that in my life.” – R.M. Drake

“If you are happy and people around you are (unhappy), they will not allow you to stay happy. Therefore, much of our happiness depends upon our ability to spread happiness around us.” – Dr. Madan Kataria

“We women take love too seriously. Men wish to be loved with laughter, … so laugh, … or soon you may be weeping.” – Minna Thomas Antrim

“Laughter has no foreign accent.” – Paul Lowney

Where Laughter Comes From

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often … filled with your tears.” – Kahlil Gibran

“True humor springs more from the heart than from the head. … Its essence is love.” – Thomas Carlyle

“The wellspring of laughter is not happiness, but pain, stress, and suffering.” – James Thurber

“If you have no tragedy, you have no comedy. Crying and laughing are the same emotion. If you laugh too hard, you cry. And vice versa.” – Sid Caesar

“Humor is laughing at what you haven’t got when you ought to have it.” – James Langston Hughes

“To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain and play with it.” – Charlie Chaplin

“The comic and the tragic live inseparably close, like light and shadow.” – Socrates

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” – Kahlil Gibran

“Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.” – Golda Meir

“What is funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

The Importance of Laughing at Yourself

“You grow up the day you have your first real laugh — at yourself.” – Ethel Barrymore

“When we can begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.” – Katherine Mansfield

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

“Laugh at yourself first before anyone else can.” – Elsa Maxwell

“I think laughter is the best medicine. If you can’t laugh at yourself, then you can’t laugh at life and the silliness of it all.” – David Hasselhoff

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

The Dangers of Life without Laughter

“A day without laughter is a day wasted.” – Charlie Chaplin

“You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.” – Maurice Chevalier

“I have not seen anyone dying of laughter, but I know millions who are dying because they are not laughing.” – Dr. Madan Kataria

“Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable than risk being happy.” – Robert Newton Anthony

“Total absence of humor renders life impossible.” – Colette

“Your body cannot heal without play. Your mind cannot heal without laughter. Your soul cannot heal without joy.” – Catherine Rippenger Fenwick

Laugh Every Day

“A well-balanced person … finds both sides of an issue laughable.” – Herbert Procknow

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

“From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.” – Dr. Seuss

“Humor is a prelude to faith, and laughter is the beginning of prayer.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

“I commend the enjoyment of life because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.” – Ecclesiastes 8:15

“In this world, a good time to laugh is any time you can.” – Linda Ellerbee

“Laughter … has always seemed … to be the most civilized music in the world.” – Peter Ustinov

“If laughter cannot solve your problems, it will definitely dissolve your problems so that you can think clearly about what to do about them.” – Dr. Madan Kataria

“Laugh, my friend, for laughter ignites a fire within the pit of your belly and awakens your being.” – Stella & Blake

“Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Remember this: very little is needed to make a happy life.” – Marcus Aurelius

“The greatest prayer you could ever pray is to laugh every day.” – Ramtha

“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” – Mark Twain

“The person who has a sense of humor is … more relaxed in the face of a potentially stressful situation (and) more flexible in (their) approach.” – John Morreall

“Laughter always sounds more perfect than weeping. Laughter flows in a violent riff and is effortlessly melodic. Weeping is often fought, choked, half strangled, or surrendered to with humiliation.” – Anne Rice, “Taltos”

“The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.” – George Santayana

“Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away.” – Benjamin Franklin

“We don’t laugh because we’re happy. We’re happy because we laugh.” – William James

Conclusion

Let me know how you’ve benefited from laughter. That can include how laughter has improved your health, relationships, and anything else.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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Until next time,

James Barnett