The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
Interpretation
Success may come late, but those who achieve it last often receive criticism for being slow.
This quote reflects on the nature of success and how it is perceived by others. While the individual who ultimately achieves success may find joy in it, they may also be unfairly labeled as dull or slow by those who value immediate outcomes over the long-term results, emphasizing the importance of patience and the subjective nature of success.
In practice
In a motivational speech about the value of perseverance and timing.
Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
I came to believe it not true that "the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one." I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
Words sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man's first, immeasurable feat of magic. They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past.
The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make a difference that you lived at all-using the talents that God has given you for the betterment of others.
Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
We've got a bunch of new writers now who tell me they grew up watching The Simpsons. It's bizarre, and they're writing some very funny stuff.
That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires that you can't remember what happens next.
An interim government was set up in Afghanistan. It included two women, one of whom was Minister of Women's Affairs. Man, who'd she have to show here ankles to to get that job?
Just making the crowd laugh is not really doing things for me anymore. That's just knowing how to kill; I've learned how to kill - but also learned when a crowd's laughter is meaningful.
I have no idea what my best material is. Different people like different things. I'll say this: The political stuff gets the press, but the relationship jokes sell all the seats.
I think that comedy really tells you how it is. The other thing about comedy is that - you don't even know if you're failing in drama, but you do know when you're failing in comedy. When you go to a comedy and you don't hear anybody laughing, you know that you've failed.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.