“816. Women laugh when they can and weepe when they will.”
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
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George Herbert 216
Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest 1593–1633Related quotes
“When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him..”
Solitude
Poetry quotes
Source: Poems of Passion
Context: Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
“Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.”
“Man is the animal who weeps and laughs — and writes.”
If the first Prometheus brought fire from heaven in a fennel-stalk, the last will take it back — in a book.
The Pleasures of Literature (1938), p. 17
“Always laugh when you can, it is cheap medicine.”
“I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep.”
Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d'être obligé d'en pleurer.
Act I, scene ii
Variant translations:
I quickly laugh at everything, for fear of having to cry.
I force myself to laugh at everything, for fear of having to cry.
Le Barbier de Séville (1773)