The Sense of Humor |
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Common terms and phrases
absurdity Alexander Bain animals arises Aristophanes Aristotle assertion attitude cause chap CHAPTER Charles Fourier Charles Lamb Cicero comedy comic laughter contrast Darwin definition derision theory Descartes described disappointment emotion enjoy enjoyment Ennius essay essence Euripides Ewald Hecker expectation explain expression fact feeling flavor Freud funny give happy heart Hobbes humorist humorous laughter idea impulse instinct intellectual interest irony James Sully Jean Paul kind Lamennais laugh laughable LAW NUMBER least Lipps literary ludicrous Mark Twain meaning mind mood nature negative nonsense object observed opinion original Oswald Külpe ourselves pain passion peculiar perceive perception person philosophers physiological Plato play playful pleasure poetic humor positive psychic psychology Rabelais reason ridiculous satisfaction Schopenhauer scorn seems sense of humor serious Shakespeare Sigmund Freud simple smile Stanley Hall stinct sudden glory tendency wit Theodor Lipps thing tickling tion translated true truth word
Popular passages
Page 102 - Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me : the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter*, more than I invent, or is invented on me : I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
Page 139 - Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter; and is caused either by some sudden act of their own that pleaseth them; or by the apprehension of some deformed thing in another, by comparison whereof they suddenly applaud themselves.
Page 69 - The greatest authors, in their most serious works, made frequent use of puns. The sermons of Bishop Andrews and the tragedies of Shakspeare are full of them. The sinner was punned into repentance by the former, as in the latter nothing is more usual than to see a hero weeping and quibbling for a dozen lines together.
Page 149 - The comic is that side of a person which reveals his likeness to a thing, that aspect of human events which, through its peculiar inelasticity, conveys the impression of pure mechanism, of automatism, of movement without life. Consequently it expresses an individual or collective imperfection which calls for an immediate corrective. This corrective is laughter, a social gesture that singles out and represses a special kind of absentmindedness in men and in events.
Page 109 - ... a nuisance that should be put down by cudgelling...
Page 62 - It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' the Queen remarked. 'What sort of things do you remember best?' Alice ventured to ask. 'Oh, things that happened the week after next,' the Queen replied in a careless tone.
Page 245 - ... when a conduction unit is ready to conduct, conduction by it is satisfying, nothing being done to alter its action, (2...
Page 145 - For wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy...
Page 225 - McDougall defines an instinct as an inherited or innate psycho-physical disposition which determines its possessor to perceive and to pay attention to objects of a certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular quality on perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in a particular manner, or at least to experience an impulse to such action.
Page 25 - If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the mountain.