Donne on the Necessity of Laughter

John Donne, an oil portrait ca. 1610

Ride, si sapis, ô puella ride; If thou beest wise, laugh: for since the powers of discourse and Reason, and laughter bee equally proper vnto Man onely, why shall not he be onely most wise, which hath most vse of laughing, aswell as he which hath most of reasoning and discoursing? I alwayes did, and shall vnderstand that Adage; Per risum multum possis cognoscere stultum, that by much laughing thou maist know there is a Foole, not, that the laughers are Fooles, but that among them there is some Foole at whom wisemen laugh: which moued Erasmus to put this as his first Argument in the mouth of his Folly, that she made Beholders laugh: for fooles are the most laughed at, and laugh the least themselues of any.

–John Donne, Certaine Paradoxes and Problemes, pt. x, That a Wise Man is Knowne by Much Laughing (1633)