Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutangwas a Chinese writer, translator, linguist and inventor. His informal but polished style in both Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, and his compilations and translations of classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West...
NationalityChinese
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth10 October 1895
CountryChina
mind curious humans
The human mind is a curious thing. It can take just so much and no more.
wild-geese might too-much
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.
personality sense-of-humor affair
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.
men ideas soldier
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.
philosophy eye average
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.
loyalty appreciation sweet
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.
party cocktails cocktail-parties
A cocktail party is a place where you talk with a person you do not know about a subject you have no interest in.
biblical views monkeys
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.
heart men may
By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also.
creative intense form
Creative work carries with it a form of intense love.
moments bluebird
Happiness has always seemed like a bluebird, and consists of moments.
serious culinary ifs
If there is anything we are serious about, it is neither religion nor learning, but food.
dream war men
What threatens civilization today is not war, but the changing conception of life values entailed by certain political doctrines. Only by recapturing the dream of human freedom and restoring the importance of the common man's liberties can that undermining threat to modern civilization be averted
mistake men laughing
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.