Quotes about laughter and joy

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“The first duty towards children is to make them happy. If you have not made them so, you have wronged them. No other good they may get can make up for that.”

Charles Buxton (1823–1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician

Source: Notes of Thought (1883), p. 147

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Daniel Radcliffe photo
Daniel Radcliffe photo
Galileo Galilei photo

“My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Letter to Johannes Kepler (1610), as quoted in The Crime of Galileo (1955) by Giorgio De Santillana
Other quotes

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Zafar Mirzo photo
Thomas Hardy photo

“Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”

Source: The Mayor of Casterbridge

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Dr. Seuss photo

“Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Often attributed to Dr. Seuss without citation; also cited as an anonymous proverb.
This quote has also been attributed to Gabriel García Márquez, in Spanish: "No llores porque ya se terminó, sonríe porque sucedió."
Compare lines from In Memoriam A.H.H. of Tennyson:
  'Tis better to have loved and lost
  Than never to have loved at all.
Disputed
Variant: Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

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