“If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.”

— Joseph Addison, The Spectator, No. 494 (26 September 1712)

About Joseph Addison

1672 – 1719

English essayist, poet and politician, co-founder of 'The Spectator' and author of the tragedy 'Cato' (1713).

“And such a friendship ends not but with life.”

“'Tis not in mortals to command success, but we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it.”

“True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise.”

“Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it.”

“And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'tis that I may not weep.”

“No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.”

“The most completely wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed.”

“His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”

“The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.”