Quotation by William Hazlitt

Man is the only animal that laughs or weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. We weep at what thwarts or exceeds our desires in serious matters; we laugh at what only disappoints our expectations in trifles.
William Hazlitt (1778–1830), British essayist, critic. "On Wit and Humour," Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819).
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