“We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.”
Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.
Jean de La Bruyère, in Du Coeur
Misattributed
Il faut rire avant que d'être heureux, de peur de mourir sans avoir ri.
Aphorism 63; Variant translation: We should laugh before being happy, for fear of dying without having laughed.
Les Caractères (1688), Du Coeur
“We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.”
Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.
Jean de La Bruyère, in Du Coeur
Misattributed
“We don’t laugh because we’re happy, we’re happy because we laugh.”
William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist
Variant: I don't sing because I'm happy. I'm happy because I sing.
“We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.”
Terry Pratchett book Night Watch
Source: Night Watch
“In life we will smile, laugh, cry, bleed, die and finally laugh again.”
Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author
“We all laugh and cough with the same language and will die with the same language as well!”
Javad Alizadeh (1953) cartoonist, journalist and humorist
Quoted in Humor & Caricature (June 1995), p. 3
“We must accept our pain
Change what we can
and laugh at the rest”
Camille Paglia (1947) American writer
Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player
As quoted in "Roberto Clementeː Pounder from Puerto Rico" by John Devaney, in Baseball Stars of 1964 (1964), edited by Ray Robinson, p. 149
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1964</big>
“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