Laughter: Quotes and Hafiz poem

“When you realize how perfect everything is
you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”
~ Buddha
“What is soap to the body, laughter is to the soul.”

~ Yiddish Proverb
“I would not exchange the laughter of my heart for the fortunes of the multitudes; nor would I be content with converting my tears, invited by my agonized self, into calm. 
It is my fervent hope that my whole life on this earth will ever be tears and laughter. 
Tears that purify my heart and reveal to me the secret of life and its mystery,
Laughter that brings me closer to my fellow men;
Tears with which I join the broken-hearted,
Laughter that symbolizes joy over my very existence.”

~ Kahlil Gibran
“Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods.”

~ Japanese proverb
“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”

~ Victor Borg
“Sing because this is a food our starving world needs.
Laugh because that is the purest sound.”

~ Hafiz
“Blessed is he who makes his companions laugh.”
~ The Koran
“It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
“I have been confronted with many difficulties throughout the course of my life, and my country is going through a critical period. But I laugh often, and my laughter is contagious. When people ask me how I find the strength to laugh now, I reply that I am a professional laugher.”
~ The Dalai Lama


Laughing Buddha



Laughter ~ Hafiz

What is laughter? What is laughter?
It is God waking up! O it is God waking up!
It is the sun poking its sweet head out
From behind a cloud
You have been carrying too long,
Veiling your eyes and heart.

It is Light breaking ground for a great Structure
That is your Real body – called Truth.

It is happiness applauding itself and then taking flight
To embrace everyone and everything in this world.

Laughter is the polestar
Held in the sky by our Beloved,
Who eternally says,

“Yes, dear ones, come this way,
Come this way towards Me and Love!

Come with your tender mouths moving
And your beautiful tongues conducting songs
And with your movements – your magic movements
Of hands and feet and glands and cells – Dancing!

Know that to God’s Eye,
All movement is a Wondrous Language,
And Music – such exquisite, wild Music!”

O what is laughter, Hafiz?
What is this precious love and laughter
Budding in our hearts?

It is the glorious sound
Of a soul waking up!

 

Hafiz translation from: I Heard God Laughing – Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky