"The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity"
About this Quote
Vanity hates nothing more than being made ridiculous, and Bergson is weaponizing that fact with a neat philosophical boomerang. He pairs two absolutes - "only cure", "only fault" - not to be literal, but to corner vanity into a trap: it can’t admit the need for correction without confessing the very self-importance it lives on. Laughter, in this framing, isn’t a gentle balm; it’s social force, a corrective sting delivered by the crowd.
The line sits comfortably inside Bergson’s larger theory in Laughter (1900), where comedy functions as a kind of communal reflex. We laugh when someone becomes rigid, automatic, or inflated - when a person’s self-image stops matching the fluid reality around them. Vanity is the perfect target because it’s a moral error that performs itself: it asks to be seen as admirable, then overplays its hand. Comedy catches that overacting in real time.
The subtext is sharper than it looks. Bergson isn’t just praising humor; he’s defending it against the charge of cruelty. If laughter feels cold, that’s the point: it’s an impersonal sanction that nudges the individual back toward flexibility and proportion. And by calling vanity the only laughable fault, he’s separating the comic from the tragic. We don’t laugh at suffering or genuine malice; we laugh at self-importance because it’s a low-stakes delusion with a safety release valve. Vanity can survive a joke. It might even learn from it - if it can stand the sound.
The line sits comfortably inside Bergson’s larger theory in Laughter (1900), where comedy functions as a kind of communal reflex. We laugh when someone becomes rigid, automatic, or inflated - when a person’s self-image stops matching the fluid reality around them. Vanity is the perfect target because it’s a moral error that performs itself: it asks to be seen as admirable, then overplays its hand. Comedy catches that overacting in real time.
The subtext is sharper than it looks. Bergson isn’t just praising humor; he’s defending it against the charge of cruelty. If laughter feels cold, that’s the point: it’s an impersonal sanction that nudges the individual back toward flexibility and proportion. And by calling vanity the only laughable fault, he’s separating the comic from the tragic. We don’t laugh at suffering or genuine malice; we laugh at self-importance because it’s a low-stakes delusion with a safety release valve. Vanity can survive a joke. It might even learn from it - if it can stand the sound.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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