quote · Legacy record
Laughter is the only free emotion - the only one that can't be compelled. We can be made to fear. We can even be made to believe we're in love because, if we're kept dependent and isolated for long enough, we bond in order to survive. But laughter explodes like an aha! It comes when the punch line changes everything that has gone before, when two opposites collide and make a third and when we suddenly see a new reality...laughter is an orgasm of the mind.
Laughter is the only free emotion - the only one that can't be compelled. We can be made to fear. We can even be made to believe we're in love because, if we're kept dependent and isolated for long enough, we bond in order to survive. But laughter explodes like an aha! It comes when the punch line changes everything that has gone before, when two opposites collide and make a third and when we suddenly see a new reality...laughter is an orgasm of the mind.
Approximate author period: c. 1934 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Gloria Steinem
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1934 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1934; activity date not established; Wikidata Q231178, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q231178 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 311744; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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