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

“Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them—and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little— crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.- "The Chronicle of Young Satan," Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts”

“The source of all humor is not laughter, but sorrow.”

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”

“Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.”

“Ah, Antonio, it IS the noblest sport that ever was. I would give a year of my life to see it. Is the bull always killed?"   "Yes. Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a place, and he stands trembling, or tries to retreat. Then everybody despises him for his cowardice and wants him punished and made ridiculous; so they hough him from behind, and it is the funniest thing in the world to see him hobbling around on his severed legs; the whole vast house goes into hurricanes of laughter over it; I have laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks to see it. When he has furnished...”

“There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.”