WAFFLE IRON:
Why on earth would you want to iron a waffle? Wouldn't that just flatten out all the little squares? No, I believe waffles should be dry cleaned. Pancakes, of course, should always be ironed.-- George Carlin, p.14, Brain Droppings, 1997
For the present, the comedy of existence has not yet "become conscious" of itself.
For the present, we still live in the age of tragedy, the age of moralities and religions.-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Once you get people laughing, they're listening and you can tell them almost anything. ~~ Herbert Gardner
To attain the impossible one must attempt the absurd. -- Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936)
IF THE FOOL WOULD PERSIST IN HIS FOLLY HE WOULD BECOME WISE
-- William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
April Fool's Day: The day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year. -- Mark Twain
Start off each day with a smile and get it over with. ~~ W. C. Fields
The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for 5 seconds and think for 10 minutes. ~~ William Davis
Someday, somewhere, somehow -- everything will be funny for everyone.
-- Robert Stone, Damascus Gate.
Are we funny yet?
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
-- George Bernard Shaw 8528
LAUGH: The one step program.
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail;
if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.-- H. L. Mencken 8529
We're all funny. Some of us just don't know it yet.
Seven days without laughter makes one weak. -- Joel Goodman
Laughter restores the universe to its original state of indifference and strangeness: if it has a meaning, it is a divine one, not a human one. -- Octavio Paz
Kurt Vonnegut on writing jokes:
The reason I have written so little is that it's so damn hard to make jokes work. . . .
A joke is like building a mousetrap from scratch.
You have to work pretty hard to make the thing snap when it is supposed to snap.10485 full quote
Crowning the Lord of Misrule
The Lord of Misrule is one of the lost characters of the riotous Medieval Christmas celebration. Sometime in November, it was customary among the European peasantry to draw lots for the title of Lord of Misrule. Wearing a paper crown and motley garments, the Lord of Misrule turned the ordinary rules on their head for his appointed time. He was given full licence to enjoy whatever pleasures he desired, and to lead the others down the merry path of dalliance and delight.The crowning of the Lord of Misrule is a tradition extending back into ancient times, and was a feature of Roman Saturnalia.
What exactly does Dutch tolerance look like, in an everyday way? Three things come to mind: drugs, prostitution, and cycling. In the Netherlands, all three activities are legal. All three can easily lead to happiness, provided that certain precautions are taken. Wearing a helmet while cycling, for instance.
-- p.20 The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner 2008
"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?"
-- Charles Schultz
Happiness has no exchange value. Unhappiness is always in circulation. Life is continually minting new denominations of unhappiness. In the meeting places of the world, night and day, these change hands. The unhappy move through the streets with their pockets bulging. The happy are static, like gold in the ground.
-- Peter Schjeldahl
What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul. -- Yiddish proverb
A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. -- Irish proverb
LORD OF LIGHT by Roger Zelazny (1967)
p.76 "The Buddha remained in his grove and all things came to him. With the passage of years the festival grew larger and longer and more elaborate, like a well-fed dragon, scales all a-shimmer. The local Brahmins did not approve of the antiritualistic teachings of the Buddha, but his presence filled their coffers to overflowing; so they learned to live in his squat shadow, never voicing the word tirthika -- heretic."
Money is money, my little sonny,
And a rich man's joke is always funny.-- Thomas Edward Brown, THE DOCTOR
A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint
will convince his antagonist much sooner
than one who draws from reason and philosophy.--JOSEPH ADDISON, 1711.
What right have you to take the word "wealth"
which originally meant "well-being"
and degrade and narrow it by confining it
to certain sorts of material objects measured by money?--JOHN RUSKIN
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. -- H. L. Mencken
Funny money is earth-friendly -- you can't buy anything with it.
Whuffie recaptured the true essence of money: in the old days, if you were broke but respected, you wouldn't starve; contrariwise, if you were rich and hated, no sum could buy you security and peace. By measuring the thing that money really represented -- your personal capital with your friends and neighbors -- you more accurately gauged your success.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom -- Cory Doctorow, Jan 2003
The president of today is just the postage stamp of tomorrow. -- Gracie Allen
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
The freedom of any society varies proportionately with the volume of its laughter. -- Zero Mostel
Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair. -- George Burns
With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law, and every time they make a law it's a joke. ~~ Will Rogers
Funny world peace: We can't be fighting if we're laughing.
"The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter." -- Mark Twain
There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension. So we must do what we can with the third. -- John F. Kennedy
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein
Must be funny is a revolutionary movement to subvert society and reduce it to helpless laughter.
All you earnest young men out to save the world -- please, have a laugh. -- Reinhold Niebuhr
Do you know what the leading cause of terrorism is? It's seriousness. I'm serious. Think about it. Those people have no sense of humor. Otherwise how could they believe they will get to heaven by putting other people through hell? Here is my vision: A suicide bomber arrives at the Gates of Heaven, and God clops him over the head and says, "SCHMUCK! What'd you do that for? 72 virgins? YOU get one 72-year-old virgin, and his name starts with Ayatollah!"
Swami Beyondananda | 2003 State of the Universe Address
When the highest type of men hear Tao, they diligently practice it.
When the average type of men hear Tao, they half believe in it.
When the lowest type of men hear Tao, they laugh heartily at it.
Without the laugh, there is no Tao.
~ Lao-tzu
He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh. -- MohammedBeware of too much laughter, for it deadens the mind and produces oblivion. -- The Talmud
Alan Watts on laughter:
Do you suppose that God takes himself seriously?...
10934 full quote
Tis easy to make baptisms funny
Just add soap. -- Donald Roth
THE TRICKSTER
Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies lest they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.-- Byrd Gibbens in Napalm and Silly Putty by George Carlin, 2001
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. --Voltaire
"There is no better tool with which to pound plowshares into swords than the bible." J. A. Stanley
"It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it" -- G.K.Chesterton
If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe.
-- Kerry Thornley, Discordian Society Co-founder
True religion can be more dangerous than false religion, and our only recourse is funny religion.
"Unnatural behavior requires strong beliefs. Hence the strongest religions have been the least natural."
--EDWARD DE BONO The Happiness Purpose, 1977
RELIGION AS FAILED MAGIC: When the magic stops, the last successful format, now failed, is frozen into dogma.
--MARGOT ADLER Drawing Down the Moon, 1979
"All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either."--KURT VONNEGUT, Cat's Cradle, 1963.
Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God. -- Karl Barth
"How do I save my own life?" the poet asked.
"By being a fool," God said.-- Erica Jong, How to Save Your Own Life
There is no humor in heaven. -- Mark Twain
If you're not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there. -- Martin Luther
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee and I'll forgive Thy great big one on me. -- Robert Frost
There is nothing ultimate about life.
Its best wisdom is the knowledge of how to play games.-- BUBBA FREE JOHN The Knee of Listening p251.
If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z;
X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
-- Albert Einstein
The one important thing I've learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously: The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.
-- Margot Fonteyn
It is easy to forget that the most important aspect of comedy, after all, its great saving grace, is its ambiguity. You can simultaneously laugh at a situation, and take it seriously. ~~ Stephen Fry
What I want to do is make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously. ~~ William K. Zinsser
We can't fix serious with serious. It's been tried. We put our faith in funny, and trust the outcome.
If we're serious we miss the point.
There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them. -- Heisenberg
Seriousness is a communicable disease.
The forces of seriousness and maturity are everywhere closing in. If this trend continues, we will soon be living in a country unworthy of the greatness that was P. T. Barnum, our true Founding Father.
-- From "Inspired Immaturity" by David Brooks in The Atlantic Monthly, March 2002
Fooling around is OK, but couples who get serious are living in sin.
Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that's a real treat. ~~ Joanne Woodward
"Causing active ongoing pleasure in your mate is something people tend to restrict to the sexual realm or getting attractive food on the table on time, but keeping permanent intimate comedy going is more important than any other one thing."
p. 221, MATING by Norman Rush (1991)
Do nothing. Time is too precious to waste. -- Buddha
To lie is human. Not getting caught is divine. -- Robert Anton Wilson
Men occasionally stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
-- Winston Churchill
Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.
-- Umberto Eco
To move ahead we need a new set of lies.
"The truth is the one thing that nobody will believe."
-- George Bernard Shaw."If you tell the truth, sooner or later you'll be found out."
-- Oscar Wilde.