Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.

Repplier’s aphorism defends humor as a kind of moral and intellectual solvent rather than a destructive force. Laughter, she suggests, does not warp reality; it exposes it. If a person, institution, or idea can be “laughed off” a pedestal, that pedestal was never warranted by truth—only by unearned reverence, pretension, or collective self-deception. The line implies a faith in satire and wit as tests of authenticity: what is genuinely sound can endure being joked about, while what is hollow depends on solemnity and taboo for its authority. Humor thus becomes an ally of clear-sightedness and a check on idolatry.