Comments on: Who said, "Humor is the politeness of despair?"

Question: Who said, "Humor is the politeness of despair?"

StopMakingSense — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 23:19:24 -0800

Who said, "Humor is the politeness of despair?" Googling it attributes it, variously, to Ionesco, Marcel Duhamel, Kierkegaard, Boris Vian and Chris Marker. Google is also curious if I mean "Humor is the politics of despair." Do I?

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 04:05:15 -0800

To confuse matters further, googling what I'm assuming to be the French equivalent Lhumour est la politesse du désespoir, leads to the French Wikipédia entry on Humour which states «Lhumour est la politesse du désespoir» (citation attribuée selon les auteurs à Achille Chavée, Oscar Wilde, Georges Duhamel, Boris Vian, et parfois même, bien qu'elle ne soit pas du tout de son style, Pierre Dac).

By: languagehat

languagehat — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 07:27:41 -0800

This is probably one of the zillions of sayings out there that seem like they must have been said/written by somebody famous, but nobody knows who, so they get attributed to all the usual suspects. See my comment here for more (and a book recommendation).

By: theiconoclast31

theiconoclast31 — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 11:02:48 -0800

Mike Valentine from Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein also comes to this conclusion. There's a nice passage, when I find the book, I'll quote it.