Humour is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour. For a subject which would not bear raillery is suspicious; and a jest which would not bear a serious examination is certainly false wit.
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Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour (1709), Part 1, Sec. 5, incorrectly attributing it to Gorgias via Aristotle.