“The person who knows how to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.”
“1936. He is not laughed at, that laughs at himself first.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.”
Die Verschwörung des Fiesco (The Conspiracy of Fiesco), Act I, sc. vii (1783)
“A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable.”
15
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Context: Human life is basically a comedy. Even its tragedies often seem comic to the spectator, and not infrequently they actually have comic touches to the victim. Happiness probably consists largely in the capacity to detect and relish them. A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable.
As quoted in Checklist For Life For Moms (2005) by Thomas Nelson Publishers, p. 139.
“816. Women laugh when they can and weepe when they will.”
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
