Lin Yutang quotes

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. (Lin Yutang)
Today we are afraid of simple words like goodness and mercy and kindness. We don't believe in the good old words because we don't believe in good old values anymore. And that's why the world is sick. View quote
Lin Yutang
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. View quote
Lin Yutang
A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from. View quote
Lin Yutang
If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live. View quote
Lin Yutang
Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice. View quote
Lin Yutang
Such is human psychology that if we don't express our joy, we soon cease to feel it. View quote
Lin Yutang
What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child? View quote
Lin Yutang
The wise man reads both books and life itself. View quote
Lin Yutang
My faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier. View quote
Lin Yutang
What is patriotism but love of the good things we ate in our childhood? I have said elsewhere that the loyalty to Uncle Sam is the loyalty to doughnuts and ham and sweet potatoes and the loyalty to the German Vaterland is the loyalty to Pfannkuchen and Christmas Stollen. As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini... in food, as in death, we feel the essential brotherhood of mankind. (Lin Yutang)
A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon from one to five ruined for him already. View quote
Lin Yutang
When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set. View quote
Lin Yutang
Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise. View quote
Lin Yutang
Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. View quote
Lin Yutang
The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine. View quote
Lin Yutang
The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous. View quote
Lin Yutang
The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious, is it has need of a wise and merry philosophy. View quote
Lin Yutang
On the whole, the enjoyment of leisure is something which decidedly costs less than the enjoyment of luxury. All it requires is an artistic temperament which is bent on seeking a perfectly useless afternoon spent in a perfectly useless manner. View quote
Lin Yutang
Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey. View quote
Lin Yutang
It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action. (Lin Yutang)
There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life. View quote
Lin Yutang
A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals. View quote
Lin Yutang
I distrust all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs and human personalities. Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of the sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom. View quote
Lin Yutang
It is important that man dreams, but it is perhaps equally important that he can laugh at his own dreams. View quote
Lin Yutang