Laughter
Laughing is a reaction to certain stimuli. It may ensue from hearing a joke, being tickled, or other stimuli. Most commonly, it is considered a visual expression of a number of positive emotional states, such as joy, mirth, happiness, relief, etc. However on some occasions it may express other emotions, such as embarrassment, apology or confusion ("nervous laughter)" or courtesy laugh.
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Famous quotes containing the word laughter:
“Like dreaming, reading performs the prodigious task of carrying us off to other worlds. But reading is not dreaming because books, unlike dreams, are subject to our will: they envelop us in alternative realities only because we give them explicit permission to do so. Books are the dreams we would most like to have, and, like dreams, they have the power to change consciousness, turning sadness to laughter and anxious introspection to the relaxed contemplation of some other time and place.”
—Victor Null, South African educator, psychologist. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure, introduction, Yale University Press (1988)
“Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Even in laughter the heart is sad, and the end of joy is grief.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 14:13.