Lin Yutang quotes - page 2

How many of us are able to distinguish between the odors of noon and midnight, or of winter and summer, or of a windy spell and a still one? If man is so generally less happy in the cities than in the country, it is because all these variations and nuances of sight and smell and sound are less clearly marked and lost in the general monotony of gray walls and cement pavements. (Lin Yutang)
To me personally, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gayly than the average businessman does, for no businessman who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my eyes a philosopher. View quote
Lin Yutang
All women's dresses, in every age and country, are merely variations on the eternal struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress. View quote
Lin Yutang
All men and women have passions, natural desires and noble ambitions, and also a conscience; they have sex, hunger, fear, anger, and are subject to sickness, pain, suffering and death. Culture consists in bringing about the expression of these passions and desires in harmony. View quote
Lin Yutang
If man be sensible and one fine morning, while he is lying in bed, counts at the tips of his fingers how many things in this life truly will give him enjoyment, invariably he will find food is the first one. View quote
Lin Yutang
No, the enjoyment of an idle life doesn't cost any money. The capacity for true enjoyment of idleness is lost in the moneyed class and can be found only among people who have a supreme contempt for wealth. It must come from an inner richness of the soul in a man who loves the simple ways of life and who is somewhat impatient with the business of making money. View quote
Lin Yutang
I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life's tragedy and then life's comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening, and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot. View quote
Lin Yutang
There is so much to love and to admire in this life that it is an act of ingratitude not to be happy and content in this existence. View quote
Lin Yutang
The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy. View quote
Lin Yutang
Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks. View quote
Lin Yutang
It is not when he is working in the office but when he is lying idly on the sand that his soul utters, "Life is beautiful." (Lin Yutang)
When the mirror meets with an ugly woman, when a rare ink-stone finds a vulgar owner, and when a good sword is in the hands of a common general, there is utterly nothing to be done about it. View quote
Lin Yutang
There are two kinds of animals on earth. One kind minds his own business, the other minds other people's business. The former are vegetarians, like cows, sheep and thinking men. The latter are carnivorous, like hawks, tigers and men of action. View quote
Lin Yutang
The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach. View quote
Lin Yutang
Our task is not so much discovery as re-discovery. What one needs is not so much thinking as remembering. Sometimes it suffices to sit quietly and listen well, when venerable men have thought before us. Constant forgettings of truths once perceived are the very charm of the human mind; the history of human thought is nothing more than the story of these forgettings and rememberings and forgettings again. View quote
Lin Yutang
A man may own a thousand acres of land, and yet he still sleeps upon a bed of five feet. View quote
Lin Yutang
I like to think of criticism as the highest intellectual effort that mankind is capable of, and above all, I like to think of self-criticism as the most difficult attainment of an educated man. View quote
Lin Yutang
The Chinese believe that when there are too many policemen, there can be no individual liberty, when there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice, and when there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace. View quote
Lin Yutang
Human history is not the product of the wise direction of human reason, but is shaped by the forces of emotion-our dreams, our pride, our greed, our fears, and our desire for revenge. View quote
Lin Yutang
I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death. View quote
Lin Yutang
The best that we can hope for in this life is that we shall not have sons and grandsons of whom we need to be ashamed. (Lin Yutang)
By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also. View quote
Lin Yutang
Reality - Dreams = Animal Being Reality + Dreams = A Heart-Ache (usually called Idealism) Reality + Humor = Realism (also called Conservatism) Dreams - Humor = Fanaticism Dreams + Humor = Fantasy Reality + Dreams + Humor = Wisdom. View quote
Lin Yutang
Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading. View quote
Lin Yutang
If life is all subjective, why not be subjectively happy rather than subjectively sad? View quote
Lin Yutang