[Ads-l] Quote: All comedy is tragedy, if you only look deep enough into it. Thomas Hardy, April 14, 1889

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Way back in 2011 there was a thread on this mailing list about the
saying "Tragedy plus time equals comedy". I created a QI article on
the topic in 2013:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/06/25/comedy-plus/

A few months ago, a twitter user told me about the thematically
related saying in the subject line of this message. The QI website now
has a separate article for this Thomas Hardy quotation. I believe that
the two quotations have different meanings:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/01/13/comedy-deep/

Oddly, Hardy ascribed the remark to John Ruskin. Yet, I have been
unable to find a match in Ruskin's writings. The literary critic
Harold Orel pointed to a precise letter by Ruskin which contains a
discussion of comedy and tragedy, but I do not believe it contains a
match for the quotation. Details are available in the QI article.

Garson

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