Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian
Source: Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian
Source: Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer
"The Indian Jugglers" <br class="br"> Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)
“In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.”
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters
9 March 1748
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
“Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world.”
Earl Warren (1891–1974) United States federal judge
Speech at Columbia University (14 January 1954)
1950s
Mervyn Peake book Boy in Darkness
"Boy in Darkness," Sometime, Never (1956)
Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist
Essays and reviews, Clive James On Television (1991)
“There is nothing more precious than laughter”
Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter
Source: The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait
Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance
Act I http://books.google.com/books?id=RHkWAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Women+have+become+too+brilliant+Nothing+spoils+a+romance+so+much+as+a+sense+of+humour+in+the+woman%22+%22or+the+want+of+it+in+the+man%22&pg=PA34#v=onepage <br class="br">A Woman of No Importance (1893)
“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
"The Chronicle of Young Satan" (ca. 1897–1900, unfinished), published posthumously in Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (1969), ed. William Merriam Gibson ( pp. 165–166 http://books.google.com/books?id=LDvA2xcYZKcC&pg=PA165 in the 2005 paperback printing, ). <br class="br">Source: The Mysterious Stranger and Other Curious Tales <br class="br">Context: 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.