The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour - ha ha ha ha ha - they'll take you away, man. You can't.
Lenny BruceRead
If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the absurdity of how symbols of faith or suffering can change based on cultural context.
Lenny Bruce uses this provocative statement to illustrate how society's perceptions of symbols evolve over time. He suggests that if a different method of execution had been more culturally significant, the spiritual icons we hold dear would similarly reflect that context, challenging us to think critically about the icons we venerate and the values they represent.
In practice
In a discussion about the evolution of religious iconography, this quote can emphasize how society shapes symbolism.
The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour - ha ha ha ha ha - they'll take you away, man. You can't.
I'm not a comedian. I'm Lenny Bruce.
I'll die young, but it's like kissing God.
All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing in the bread line - right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.
In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
Marijuana is rejected all over the world. Damned. In England heroin is alright for out-patents, but marijuana? They'll put your ass in jail. I wonder why that is? The only reason could be: To Serve the Devil - Pleasure! Pleasure, which is a dirty word in Christian culture.
Forbid a man to think for himself or to act for himself and you may add the joy of piracy and the zest of smuggling to his life.
In order to speak about all and to all, one has to speak of what all know and of the reality common to us all. The sea, rains, necessity, desire, the struggle against death... these are things that unite us all.
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?
Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.
Outside our consciousness there lies the cold and alien world of actual things. Between the two stretches the narrow borderland of the senses. No communication between the two worlds is possible excepting across the narrow strip. For a proper understanding of ourselves and of the world, it is of the highest importance that this borderland should be thoroughly explored.
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