Lin Yutang Quotes - Page 5

Quotes about:

• Art is both creation and recreation. Of the two ideas, I think art as recreation or as sheer play of the human spirit is more important.

  Lin Yutang

  Art, Thinking, Play

  4 Copy quote

• As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini.

  Lin Yutang

  Appreciation, Understanding, Done

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  5 Copy quote

• I have a hankering to go back to the Orient and discard my necktie. Neckties strangle clear thinking.

  Lin Yutang

  Thinking, Neckties, Clear

  32 Copy quote

• I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing.

  Lin Yutang

  Philosophy, Views, Objectivity

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  13 Copy quote

• All human happiness is sensuous happiness.

  Lin Yutang

  Happiness, Humans, Human Happiness

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  4 Copy quote

• Now it is characteristic of play that one plays without reason and there must be no reason for it. Play is its own good reason.

  Lin Yutang

  Play, Reason, Characteristics

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  6 Copy quote

• In contrast to logic, there is common sense, or still better, the Spirit of Reasonableness.

  Lin Yutang

  Common Sense, Spirit, Logic

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  7 Copy quote

• O wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! How inscrutable is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play!

  Lin Yutang

  Wise, Men, Hair

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  6 Copy quote

• Alas, our rulers are not gods, but puny, fallible men, like the kings who constantly forget their parts, and we common men should be their prompters.

  Lin Yutang

  Kings, Men, Common

  Lin Yutang, (2013). “Between Tears and Laughter”, p.11, Read Books Ltd

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lin Yutang

  Personality, Sense Of Humor, Affair

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  7 Copy quote

• The dog which remembers only to bark and not to bite, and is led through the streets as a lady's pet, is only a degenerate wolf.

  Lin Yutang

  Dog, Pet, Degenerates

  Yutang Lin (1939). “My country and my people”

  4 Copy quote

• The only part of Christian teachings which will be truly accepted by the Chinese people is Christ's injunction to be "harmless as doves" but "wise as serpents.

  Lin Yutang

  Christian, Wise, Teaching

  4 Copy quote

• The purpose of a short story is ... that the reader shall come away with the satisfactory feeling that a particular insight into human character has been gained, or that his (or her) knowledge of life has been deepened, or that pity, love or sympathy for a human being is awakened.

  Lin Yutang

  Character, Pity Love, Feelings

  6 Copy quote

• He who is afraid to use an "I" in his writing will never make a good writer.

  Lin Yutang

  Writing, Use, Good Writers

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  4 Copy quote

• There is more hope in a heather rose than in all the tons of Teutonic philosophy.

  Lin Yutang

  Philosophy, Rose, Heathers

  Lin Yutang, (2013). “Between Tears and Laughter”, p.4, Read Books Ltd

  4 Copy quote

• No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.

  Lin Yutang

  Men, Respectable, Respectability

  Lin Yutang (1940). “With Love and Irony”

  7 Copy quote

• All human beings are like travelers floating down the eternal river of time, embarking at a certain point and disembarking again at another point in order to make room for others waiting below the river to come aboard.

  Lin Yutang

  Death, Order, Rivers

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  4 Copy quote

• The humour of the Chinese people in inventing gunpowder and finding its best use in making firecrackers for their grandfathers' birthdays is merely symbolical of their inventiveness along merely pacific lines.

  Lin Yutang

  People, Chinese, Grandfather

  7 Copy quote

• The history omankind seems like kite flying; sometimes, when the wind is favorable, we let go the string a little and the kite soars a little higher; sometimes the wind is too rough and we have to lower it a little, and sometimes it gets caught among the tree branches; but to reach the upper strata of pure bliss-ah, perhaps never.

  Lin Yutang

  Letting Go, Men, Wind

  38 Copy quote

• Everything has its place and time. We men of the nineteen-forties can smile at the mistakes of the nineteen-thirties, and, in turn, the men of the nineteen-fifties will laugh at the mistakes of the nineteen-forties. It is this historical perspective that shall save us.

  Lin Yutang

  Mistake, Men, Laughing

  Lin Yutang, (2013). “Between Tears and Laughter”, p.13, Read Books Ltd

  4 Copy quote

• The end of living is the true enjoyment of it.

  Lin Yutang

  Life, Ends, Enjoyment

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

  4 Copy quote

• If there is anything we are serious about, it is neither religion nor learning, but food.

  Lin Yutang

  Food, Cooking, Serious

  Yutang Lin (1936). “My country and my people”

  7 Copy quote

• After all the allowances are made for the necessity of having a few supermen in our midst - explorers, conquerors, great inventors, great presidents, heroes who change the course of history - the happiest man is still the man of the middle class who has earned a slight means of economic independence, who has done a little, but just a little, for mankind and who is slightly distinguished in his community, but not too distinguished.

  Lin Yutang

  Hero, Mean, Men

  4 Copy quote

• China is the greatest mystifying and stupefying fact in the modern world.

  Lin Yutang

  World, Facts, Modern

  Yutang Lin (1935). “The Little Critic: Essays, Satire and Sketches on China (second Series: 1933-1935)”

  4 Copy quote

• Once [China] had a destiny. Once she was a conqueror. Now her greatest destiny seems to be merely to exist, to survive.

  Lin Yutang

  Destiny, China, Conqueror

  4 Copy quote

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