Mirth Quotes - Page 8

• Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet. From the ripple to run over in its mirth

  Robert Browning

  Running, Morning, Autumn

  Robert Browning (1830). “An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry”, p.207

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• I am in no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company, yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof.

  Thomas Browne

  Dream, Laughing, Way

  Sir Thomas Browne (1844). “Religio Medici. Its sequel, Christian Morals ... With resemblant passages from Cowper's Task, and a verbal index. [Edited by John Peace.]”, p.121

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• Humor is in fact an essential element in the mirth of creation. We can see how, in many matters in our lives, God wants to prod us into taking things a bit more lightly.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Essentials, Elements, Want

  Pope Benedict XVI, Peter Seewald (2002). “God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time : a Conversation with Peter Seewald”, p.14, Ignatius Press

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• Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger

  William Shakespeare

  Passion, Gross

  William Shakespeare, Nikolaus Delius (1857). “Werke: Histories: King John. King Richard II. King Henry IV. Part 1. King Henry IV. Part 2. King Henry V.”

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• Books come at my call and return when I desire them; they are never out of humor and they answer all my questions with readiness. Some present in review before me the events of past ages; others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. These teach me how to live, and those how to die; these dispel my melancholy by their mirth, and amuse me by their sallies of wit. Some there are who prepare my soul to suffer everything, to desire nothing, and to become thoroughly acquainted with itself. In a word, they open the door to all the arts and sciences.

  Petrarch

  Art, Book, Past

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• Kevin Kline gives a master class in acting. He finds every nuance of mirth and melancholy in this wonder of a role and rides it to glory. You can't take your eyes off him.

  Peter Travers

  Eye, Class, Giving

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• Looking back through the mists of time, I recall some distinctly religious experiences in my teens--when I was only fourteen years old to be precise. These experiences opened my mind to the idea of a Creator and that caring for other living things was a Christian duty. My parents were not strongly religious at the time and when I announced at that youthful age that I wanted to be a priest, it not unnaturally provoked some incredulity, even mirth. In the same year, I became a vegetarian, which--for family and friends--was even more vexing.

  Andrew Linzey

  Christian, Religious, Caring

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• What is it that strikes a spark of humor from a man? It is the effort to throw off, to fight back the burden of grief that is laid on each one of us. In youth we don't feel it, but as we grow to manhood we find the burden on our shoulders. Humor? It is nature's effort to harmonize conditions. The further the pendulum swings out over woe the further it is bound to swing back over mirth.

  Mark Twain

  Grief, Humor, Fighting

  Mark Twain, Gary Scharnhorst (2009). “Mainly the truth: interviews with Mark Twain”, University Alabama Press

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• Where lives the man that has not tried How mirth can into folly glide, And folly into sin!

  Walter Scott

  Life, Men, Sin

  Sir Walter Scott (1855). “The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott”, p.388

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• Even the song of birds, which we can bring under no musical rule, seems to have more freedom, and therefore more for taste, than a song of a human being which is produced in accordance with all the rules of music; for we very much sooner weary of the latter, if it is repeated often and at length. Here, however, we probably confuse our participation in the mirth of a little creature that we love, with the beauty of its song; for if this were exactly imitated by man (as sometimes the notes of the nightingale are) it would seem to our ear quite devoid of taste.

  Immanuel Kant

  Song, Men, Bird

  Immanuel Kant (2016). “The Critique of Judgement”, p.94, Jester House Publishing

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• Not by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment, and childlike mirth-fulness. If you would know aught, be gay before it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Gay, Abandonment

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.15, Courier Corporation

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• The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come, And make their bed with thee.

  William C. Bryant

  Art, Gay, Laughing

  William Cullen Bryant, “Thanatopsis”

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• And the small ripple spilt upon the beach Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain! Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,— Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.

  Lord Byron

  Beach, Laughter, Spring

  Lord Byron (2013). “Don Juan”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

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• Life is serious all the time, but living cannot be. You may have all the solemnity you wish in your neckties, but in anything important (such as sex, death, and religion), you must have mirth or you will have madness.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Sex, Wish, Important

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• Oh! like a wreath, let Christmas mirth To-day encircle all the earth, And bind the nations with the love That Jesus brought from heaven above.

  Maud Lindsay

  Jesus, Heaven, Wreaths

  Maud Lindsay (2010). “Mother Stories”, p.134, Heart of Dixie Publishing

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• Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high,
  Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye,
  Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired,
  Where graybeard mirth and smiling toil retired,
  Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound,
  And news much older than their ale went round.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Lying, Eye, Nuts

  Oliver Goldsmith (1834). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B.: With a Biographical Memoir of the Author, Written Expressly for this Edition”, p.100

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• Cruelty in all countries is the companion of anger; but there is only one, and never was another on the globe, where she coquets both with anger and mirth.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Country, Cuckoos, Cruelty

  Walter Savage Landor (1826). “Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen”, p.453

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• What, my soul, was thy errand here?
  Was it mirth or ease,
  Or heaping up dust from year to year?
  "Nay, none of these!"
  Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight,
  Whose eye looks still
  And steadily on thee through the night;
  "To do His will!

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Eye, Night, Sight

  John Greenleaf Whittier (1873). “The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier”, p.93

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• A companion that feasts the company with and mirth, and leaves out the sin which is usually mixed with them, he is the man; and let me tell you, good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.

  Izaak Walton

  Men, Sin, Virtue

  'The Compleat Angler' (1653) pt. 1, ch. 2

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• Wrinkle not thy face with too much laughter, lest thou become ridiculous; neither wanton thy heart with too much mirth, lest thou become vain: the suburbs of folly is vain mirth, and profuseness of laughter is the city of fools.

  Francis Quarles

  Laughter, Heart, Wrinkles

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.56

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• We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers.

  Agnes Repplier

  Cheer, Laughter, Memories

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