<P> Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850--October 30, 1919) was an American author and poet . Her best - known work was Poems of Passion . Her most enduring work was "Solitude", which contains the lines "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone". Her autobiography, The Worlds and I, was published in 1918, a year before her death . </P> <P> Ella Wheeler was born in 1850 on a farm in Johnstown, Wisconsin, east of Janesville, the youngest of four children . The family soon moved north of Madison . She started writing poetry at a very early age, and was well known as a poet in her own state by the time she graduated from high school . </P>

Who said laugh and the world laughs with you