A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
Interpretation
A sense of humor transforms everyday situations into joyful experiences.
William James suggests that having a sense of humor is not just about being funny; it's a form of common sense that allows individuals to navigate life's challenges with grace and joy. By likening humor to 'dancing,' he implies that it is an active and dynamic approach to life, where one can find enjoyment and lightness even in serious or mundane circumstances.
In practice
In a speech about resilience, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of finding joy in tough situations.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
I remain just one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.
Well, I'm having a good time. Which makes me feel guilty too. How very English.
The truth is, laughter always sounds more perfect than weeping. Laughter flows in a violent riff and is effortlessly melodic. Weeping is often fought, choked, half strangled, or surrendered to with humiliation.
As soon as I realized you could be funny as a job, that was the job I wanted.
I do benefits for all religions - I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality.
Why can't they have gay people in the army? Personally, I think they are just afraid of a thousand guys with M16s going, "Who'd you call a faggot?"
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