“A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.”

— John Cleese

From an interview http://www.avclub.com/article/john-cleese-14197 with The A. V. Club (2008)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people." by John Cleese?

John Cleese 32

actor from England 1939

Related quotes

“I'm struck by how laughter connects you with people. It's almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you're just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force for democracy.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

From The Human Face, BBC Television (2001)

“People will believe in just about any kind of superstitious crap nowadays.”

Michael Swanwick (1950) American science fiction author

Source: In the Drift (1985), Chapter 5, “Marrow Death” (p. 152)

“The great thing about people with intellectual disabilities is that they’re not people who discuss philosophy… What they want is fun and laughter, to do things together and fool around, and laughter is at the heart of community.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

The Gift of Living With the Not Gifted http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gift-of-living-with-the-not-gifted-1428103079 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015
From interviews and talks

“There are two kinds of people in this world. The kind who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't.”

Ann Brashares The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

“Humor is absolutely necessary to keep going…So many of the people in my family and my community were wonderful storytellers. They would tell stories about just awful things that happened to them. But their humor made what happened into their own kind of triumph.”

Stephanie Powell Watts

On the importance of humor in “INTERVIEWS: Stephanie Powell Watts” https://bookpage.com/interviews/21148-stephanie-powell-watts-fiction#.Xe_qN_lKjcs in BookPage (April 2017)

“The search for that language, the search for the ways to tell young people what we know as we grow older — the permanent and wonderful things about life — will be one of the great functions of this system.”

Edwin H. Land (1909–1991) American scientist and inventor

Testimony in The Public Television Act of 1967 : Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Communications, by the United States Congress, p. 167
Context: Our society is changing so rapidly that none of us can know what it is or where it is going. All of us who are mature feel that there are historic principles of behavior and morality, of things that we all believe in that are being lost, not because young people couldn't believe in them, but because there is no language for translating them into contemporary terms.
The search for that language, the search for the ways to tell young people what we know as we grow older — the permanent and wonderful things about life — will be one of the great functions of this system. We are losing this generation. We all know that. We need a way to get them back.