“Good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.”

As quoted in This much I know: Jim Carrey, actor, 46, Los Angeles http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/19/jim-carrey-interview by Tony Horkins in The Observer (19 October 2008)
Context: Comedic actors can be looked at as a lower form because we have to put ourselves in a lower place than most of the audience. I think lofty emotions are somehow considered more special. The best stories in the world to me are the ones that elicit a real emotion, but have humour.

On a Wife.
Other

Ham and Tongue.
One-Half of Robertson Davies (1977)
Context: I have never consciously "used" humour in my life. Such humour as I may have is one of the elements in which I live. I cannot recall a time when I was not conscious of the deep, heaving, rolling ocean of hilarity that lies so very near the surface of life in most of its aspects. If I am a moralist — and I suppose I am — I am certainly not a gloomy moralist, and if humour finds its way into my work it is because I cannot help it.

Instructions regarding a proposed gift of a wedding dress for her marriage to Pierre in July 1895, as quoted in 'Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 137

Rolling Stone. 23 January 1997.

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 15, “Probably a blind alley—”, p. 147
Context: Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only. But gunfighting has a strong biological use. We do not have enough things to kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both. It’s a good thing.

Source: Persuasion

No. 85
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)