“A child laughs when it feels joy and cries when it feels pain. Both things, laughing and crying, it does with its whole heart. We have all become so tall and so clever. We know so much and we have read so much. But one thing we have forgot: to laugh and cry like the children do.”

—  Joseph Goebbels

Das Kind lacht, wenn es Freude hat, und weint, wenn es Schmerz empfindet. Bei beidem, bei Lachen und Weinen ist sein ganzes Herz dabei. Wir sind alle so groß und klug geworden. Wir wissen so viel und haben so viel gelesen. Aber eines haben wir vergessen: zu lachen und zu weinen wie die Kinder.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Nov. 2, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A child laughs when it feels joy and cries when it feels pain. Both things, laughing and crying, it does with its whole…" by Joseph Goebbels?
Joseph Goebbels photo
Joseph Goebbels 145
Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister 1897–1945

Related quotes

Ray Bradbury photo

“So in sum, what are we? We are the creatures that know and know too much. That leaves us with such a burden again we have a choice, to laugh or cry. No other animal does either. We do, depending on the season and the need.”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes

“I wish everyone would stop crying, Tom. Uncle Joe would be so angry about it." But she's crying herself now. "He'd be so angry at us, Tom, for crying so much when all he did was laugh.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: The Piper's Son

Leonard Cohen photo

“It's time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Source: Songs of Leonard Cohen, Herewith: Music, Words and Photographs

Markus Zusak photo

“We both laugh and run and the moment is so thick around me that i feel like dropping into it to let it carry me.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Thomas Carlyle photo

“it is always a genial laughter. Not at mere weakness, at misery or poverty; never. No man who can laugh, what we call laughing, will laugh at these things. It is some poor character only desiring to laugh, and have the credit of wit, that does so. Laughter means sympathy.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Rod McKuen photo

“So… like laughing children we’ll go
singing love wherever we go.”

Rod McKuen (1933–2015) American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer

"Only Love" by Jacques Brel as translated on the album After Midnight (1988)
Translations and adaptations
Context: We have only love,
to help us find our way,
as we go out into the world.
So... like laughing children we’ll go
singing love wherever we go.

Mike Oldfield photo

“Do we have to be so distant
How can you be so unreal?
What's the reason for hiding and
How this crying make you feel?”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Discovery (1984)

Bram Stoker photo

“Friend John, forgive me if I pain. I showed not my feeling to others when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust. If you could have looked into my very heart then when I want to laugh; if you could have done so when the laugh arrived; if you could do so now, when King Laugh have pack up his crown, and all that is to him — for he go far, far away from me, and for a long, long time — maybe you would perhaps pity me the most of all.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

I was touched by the tenderness of his tone, and asked why.
“Because I know!”
Professor Van Helsing to Dr. John Seward, in Dr. Seward's Diary entry for 22 September
Dracula (1897)

Related topics