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.
son needs life-is
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.
ideals greater
The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
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.
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.
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
misunderstood may
Nobody is ever misunderstood at a fireside; he may only be disagreed with.
life success lying
Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.
reading mood proper-time
There is no proper time and place for reading. When the mood for reading comes, one can read anywhere
travel perfect doe
A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from.
sex pain ambition
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 of bringing about the expression of these passions and desires in harmony.
life serious-business too-short
Life is too short to make an over-serious business out of it.
death order rivers
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.
achievement unhappy desire
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.