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
christian wise teaching
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.
wise men hair
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!
wise philosophy believe
The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious ... it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.
wise men busy
The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.
inspirational beautiful wise
There is nothing more beautiful in this world than a healthy, wise old man.
wise reading book
The wise man reads both books and life itself.
wise busy too-busy
Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise.
weekend men order
The question that faces every man born into this world is not what should be his purpose, which he should set about to achieve, but just what to do with life? The answer, that he should order his life so that he can find the greatest happiness in it, is more a practical question, similar to that of how a man should spend his weekend, then a metaphysical proposition as to what is the mystic purpose of his life in the scheme of the universe.
simplicity depth signs-and-symbols
Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
mean behavior uncomfortable
Best behavior means the same thing as the most uncomfortable behavior.
play reason characteristics
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.
hero mean men
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.
army thinking color
Everything that we think God has in his mind necessarily proceeds from our own mind; it is what we imagine to be in God's mind, and it is really difficult for human intelligence to guess at a divine intelligence. What we usually end up with by this sort of reasoning is to make God the color-sergeant of our army and to make Him as chauvinistic as ourselves.
destiny china conqueror
Once [China] had a destiny. Once she was a conqueror. Now her greatest destiny seems to be merely to exist, to survive.