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The best way to heal is through laughter.
By Megan Hatch — Written on Nov 06, 2021
Laughter is one of the best ways to heal and feel happy.
It has special healing powers unlike anything else and when we are feeling down, a good laugh can bring our spirits back up.
Laughter also has many proven health benefits that affect your overall mood as there's no other feeling like having a good laugh.
It can distract you from all the bad things in your life and any negative thoughts you're stuck thinking about.
If you need a good laugh or need some inspiring quotes to remind you to laugh more often, these laughter quotes are for you.
1. "A good laugh heals a lot of hurts." — Madeleine L’Engle
2. "The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." — Voltaire
3. "[Humanity] has unquestionably one really effective weapon — laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution — these can lift at a colossal humbug — push it a little — weaken it a little, century by century, but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand." — Mark Twain
4. "A good laugh is a mighty good thing, a rather too scarce a good thing." — Herman Melville
5. "To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain and play with it." — Charlie Chaplin
6. "A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people." — John Cleese
7. "If you don’t learn to laugh at trouble, you won’t have anything to laugh at when you’re old." — Edgar Watson Howe
8. "Laughter serves as a blocking agent. Like a bulletproof vest, it may help protect you against the ravages of negative emotions that can assault you in disease." — Norman Cousins
9. "If you would not be laughed at, be the first to laugh at yourself." — Benjamin Franklin
10. "I have always felt that laughter in the face of reality is probably the finest sound there is and will last until the day when the game is called on account of darkness. In this world, a good time to laugh is any time you can." — Linda Ellerbee
11. "Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter." — Friedrich Nietzsche
12. "I have not seen anyone dying of laughter, but I know millions who are dying because they are not laughing." — Dr. Madan Kataria
13. "Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face." — Victor Hugo
14. "The person who has a sense of humor is not just more relaxed in the face of a potentially stressful situation, but is more flexible in his approach." — John Morreall
15. "Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine." — Lord Byron
16. "As soap is to the body, so laughter is to the soul." — Jewish Proverb
17. "A good laugh is sunshine in the house." — William Thackeray
18. "Laughter heals all wounds, and that's one thing that everybody shares. No matter what you're going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing." — Kevin Hart
19. "At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities." — Jean Housten
20. "A smile is a curve that sets everything straight." — Phyllis Diller
21. "A well-balanced person is one who finds both sides of an issue laughable." — Herbert Procknow
22. "A smile starts on the lips, a grin spreads to the eyes, a chuckle comes from the belly; but a good laugh bursts forth from the soul, overflows, and bubbles all around." — Carolyn Birmingham
23. "An optimist laughs to forget; a pessimist forgets to laugh." — Tom Nansbury
24. "Laugh my friend, for laughter ignites a fire within the pit of your belly and awakens your being." — Stella McCartney
25. "No matter what your heartache may be, laughing helps you forget it for a few seconds." — Red Skelton
26. "And keep a sense of humor. It doesn’t mean you have to tell jokes. If you can’t think of anything else, when you’re my age, take off your clothes and walk in front of a mirror. I guarantee you’ll get a laugh." — Art Linkletter
27. "I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable." — Viktor Frankl
28. "Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath." — George Carlin
29. "From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere." — Dr. Seuss
30. "A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life." — Hugh Sidey
31. "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." — Henry Louis Mencken
32. "When we can begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves." — Katherine Mansfield
33. "He who laughs, lasts!" — Mary Pettibone Poole
34. "Humor is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer." — Reinhold Niebuhr
35. "All I claim to know is that laughter is the most reliable gauge of human nature." — Fyodor Dostoyevsky
36. "Humor is laughing at what you haven’t got when you ought to have it." — James Langston Hughes
37. "The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed." — Bennett Cerf
38. "We don’t laugh because we’re happy, we are happy because we laugh." — William James
39. "I will follow the upward road today; I will keep my face to the light. I will think high thoughts as I go my way; I will do what I know is right. I will look for the flowers by the side of the road; I will laugh and love and be strong. I will try to lighten another’s load this day as I fare along." — Mary S. Edgar
40. "You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing." — George Bernard Shaw
41. "If laughter cannot solve your problems, it will definitely dissolve your problems; so that you can think clearly what to do about them." — Dr. Madan Kataria
42. "It is bad to suppress laughter. It goes back down and spreads to your hips." — Fred Allen
43. "Laughter is the closest distance between two people." — Victor Borge
44. "Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can." — Elsa Maxwell
45. "Laugh my friend, for laughter ignites a fire within the pit of your belly and awakens your being." — Stella & Blake
46. "I think laughter and stimulating conversation are the things that truly make a romantic evening." — Michael Buble
47. "Laughter is God's blessing." — Joseph Prince
48. "Laughter has no foreign accent." — Paul Lowney
49. "Your body cannot heal without play. Your mind cannot heal without laughter. Your soul cannot heal without joy." — Catherine Ripperger Fenwick
50. "Everybody laughs the same in every language because laughter is a universal connection." — Yakov Smirnoff
51. "Laughter is a sense of proportion and a power of seeing yourself from the outside." — Zero Mostel
52. "Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks." — Henri Bergson
53. "Laughter is the foundation of reconciliation." — St. Francis de Sales
54. "I left in love, in laughter, and in truth, and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit." — Bill Hicks
55. "The fine line between roaring with laughter and crying because it's a disaster is a very, very fine line. You see a chap slip on a banana skin in the street and you roar with laughter when he falls slap on his backside. If in doing so you suddenly see he's broken a leg, you very quickly stop laughing and it's not a joke anymore." — Roald Dahl
56. "Laughter is the loaded latency given us by nature as part of our native equipment to break up the stalemates of our lives and urge us on to deeper and more complex forms of knowing." — Jean Houston
57. "Laughter lets me relax. It’s the equivalent of taking a deep breath, letting it out and saying, ‘This, too, will pass’." — Odette Pollar
58. "Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the one most surely wasted." — Sebastien Roch
59. "The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow." — Socrates
60. "The greatest prayer you could ever pray is to laugh every day." — Ramtha
61. "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." — E.E. Cummings
62. "The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed." — Bennett Cerf
63. "The truth is, laughter always sounds more perfect than weeping. Laughter flows in a violent riff and is effortlessly melodic. Weeping is often fought, choked, half strangled, or surrendered to with humiliation." — Anne Rice, Taltos
64. "Total absence of humor renders life impossible." — Colette
65. "True humor springs more from the heart than from the head; it is not contempt, its essence is love." — Thomas Carlyle
66. "We are all here for a spell. Get all the good laughs you can." — Will Rogers
67. "We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh." — Agnes Repplier
68. "Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce." — Molly Ivins
69. "I found that laughter was a form of acceptance, and I really enjoyed that and I just — I crave it." — Gabriel Iglesias
70. "Seven days without laughter makes one weak." — Mort Walker
71. "There is little success where there is little laughter." — Andrew Carnegie
72. "The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness." — Milan Kundera
73. "All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other." — August Wilson
74. "Tell the truth. Sing with passion. Work with laughter. Love with heart. 'Cause that's all that matters in the end." — Kris Kristofferson
75. "Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on." — Bob Newhart
76. "Laughter is the best medicine — unless you're diabetic, then insulin comes pretty high on the list." — Jasper Carrott
77. "I think I just laugh nonstop. I think my laughter naturally melts in when I want to recharge." — J-Hope
78. "Laughter is important, not only because it makes us happy, it also has actual health benefits. And that's because laughter completely engages the body and releases the mind. It connects us to others, and that in itself has a healing effect." — Marlo Thomas
79. "Who would want a face that hasn't seen or lived properly, hasn't got any wrinkles that come with age, experience, and laughter? Not me, anyway." — Cate Blanchett
80. "I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get your emotions going." — Jim Valvano
81. "The highest state is laughter." — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
82. "When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky." — Buddha
83. "Wit is the key, I think, to anybody’s heart, because who doesn’t like to laugh?" — Julia Roberts
84. "With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." — William Shakespeare
85. "With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die." — Abraham Lincoln
86. "You grow up the day you have your first real laugh — at yourself." — Ethel Barrymore
87. "Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears." — Kahlil Gibran
88. "Real laughter is spontaneous. Like water from the spring, it bubbles forth a creation of mingled action and spontaneity — two magic potions in themselves — the very essence of laughter — the unrestrained emotion within us!" — Douglas Fairbanks
89. "Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors." — Norman Cousins
90. "Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything." — Kurt Vonnegut
91. "To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter." — Francoise Sagan
92. "If Heaven exists, to know that there's laughter, that would be a great thing." — Robin Williams
93. "It is impossible for you to be angry and laugh at the same time. Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have the power to choose either." — Wayne Dyer
94. "Laughter is God’s hand on the shoulder of a troubled world." — Bettenell Huntznicker
95. "Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly." — Thomas Hobbes
96. "So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter." — Gordon W. Allport
97. "I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose." — Woody Allen
98. "Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one." — Oscar Wilde
99. "The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour — ha ha ha ha ha — they'll take you away, man. You can't." — Lenny Bruce
100. "You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants." — Stephen King
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Megan Hatch is a writer at YourTango who covers news & entertainment, love & relationships, and internet culture. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.