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About this quote

What does it mean?
Comedy thrives on wasting moments, while tragedy deals with the weight of endless time.
In plain terms
Funny things happen when we kill time, but sad things happen when we face eternity.
What can you take from it?
Humor often comes from shortening long waits or boring moments.

Where it applies

  • discussing literature
  • analyzing humor
  • philosophical debate

Putting it to work

  • writing comedy
  • interpreting plays
  • discussing time

Questions to consider

  • How does your culture view wasting time?
  • Is comedy just a way to cope with eternity?

Another view

This comparison oversimplifies the complex functions of both genres.

More from Miguel de Unamuno

  1. Warmth, warmth, more warmth! for we are dying of cold and not of darkness. It is not the night that kills, but the frost.

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  2. I would say that teleology is theology, and that God is not a 'because,' but rather an 'in order to.'

    Permalink to quote #24
  3. The intellectual world is divided into two classes - dilettantes, on the one hand, and pedants, on the other.

    Permalink to quote #21

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