"I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep"
About this Quote
Beaumarchais lived in a France where wit wasn’t just entertainment; it was camouflage. As the playwright behind Figaro, he understood that jokes can smuggle criticism past censors and social gatekeepers. In that world, laughter becomes both shield and weapon: you mock power to survive it, and you survive it by pretending you’re only mocking. The line’s subtext is pragmatic, even a little paranoid: if you let yourself feel the full weight of what you see - inequality, hypocrisy, the fragility of status - you might not come back from it.
Calling him an “inventor” fits, even if it misdirects. This is an engineered response to pressure, a device for living under conditions that don’t reward sincerity. The sentence also carries a quiet indictment of the society that makes such speed necessary. When laughter is preventative medicine, the diagnosis is bleak: the world isn’t merely sad; it’s structured to make sadness inevitable unless you stay one joke ahead.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sadness |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Beaumarchais, Pierre. (2026, January 14). I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-hasten-to-laugh-at-everything-for-fear-of-being-115811/
Chicago Style
Beaumarchais, Pierre. "I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep." FixQuotes. January 14, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-hasten-to-laugh-at-everything-for-fear-of-being-115811/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep." FixQuotes, 14 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-hasten-to-laugh-at-everything-for-fear-of-being-115811/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.












