Lin Yutang Quotes (67 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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The Importance of Living

Lin Yutang

Lin Yutang: 67 quotes19 likes

Famous Lin Yutang Quotes

“I have done my best: that is about all the philosophy of living one needs.”

“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.”

Lin Yutang

Source: Pleasures of a Nonconformist

“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.”

Lin Yutang

Epilogue, p. 328
My Country and My People (1935)

“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live”

Lin Yutang

“When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.”

Lin Yutang

As quoted in Hard-to-Solve Cryptograms (2001) by Derrick Niederman, p. 96

“A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 332

Lin Yutang Quotes about life

“This is a personal testimony, a testimony of my own experience of thought and life. It is not intended to be objective and makes no claim to establish eternal truths. In fact I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Preface
The Importance of Living (1937)
Context: This is a personal testimony, a testimony of my own experience of thought and life. It is not intended to be objective and makes no claim to establish eternal truths. In fact I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing. I should have liked to call it "A Lyrical Philosophy," using the word "lyrical" in the sense of being a highly personal and individual outlook...

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: As quoted in Pearls of Wisdom: A Harvest of Quotations From All Ages (1987) by Jerome Agel and Walter D. Glanze, p. 46. From The Importance of Living: "besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone" (p. 162), "the wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials" (p. 10).

“The wise man reads both books and life itself.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 388

“There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 224

“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 book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 2

“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.”

Lin Yutang

Lin Yutang: Trending quotes

“What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?”

Lin Yutang

Variant: What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?

“If the early Chinese people had any chivalry, it was manifested not toward women and children, but toward old people. That feeling of chivalry found clear expression in Mencius in some such saying as, "The people with gray hair should not be seen carrying burdens on the street," which was expressed as the final goal of good government.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 193

“It is important that man dreams, but it is perhaps equally important that he can laugh at his own dreams.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, pp. 4–5

Lin Yutang Quotes

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.”

Lin Yutang

"A Trip to Anhwei", in With Love And Irony (1940), p. 145

“On the whole, the enjoyment of leisure is something which decidedly costs less than the enjoyment of luxury. All it requires is an artistic temperament which is bent on seeking a perfectly useless afternoon spent in a perfectly useless manner.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 153. Often quoted as: "If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live."

“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.”

Lin Yutang

Confucius Saw Nancy and Essays about Nothing (1936), p. 95

“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 book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 23
Context: A reasonable naturalist then settles down to this life with a sort of animal satisfaction. As Chinese illiterate women put it, "Others gave birth to us and we give birth to others. What else are we to do?".... Life becomes a biological procession and the very question of immortality is sidetracked. For that is the exact feeling of a Chinese grandfather holding his grandchild by the hand and going to the shops to buy some candy, with the thought that in five or ten years he will be returning to his grave or to his ancestors. 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.

“I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 12
Context: I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from being lost in serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him.

“That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 407
Context: I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it. All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth.

“By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 282
Context: By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also. There is a way of looking upon a landscape as a moving picture and being satisfied with nothing less big as a moving picture, a way of looking upon tropic clouds over the horizon as the backdrop of a stage and being satisfied with nothing less big as a backdrop, a way of looking upon the mountain forests as a private garden and being satisfied with nothing less as a private garden, a way of listening to the roaring waves as a concert and being satisfied with nothing less as a concert, and a way of looking upon the mountain breeze as an air-cooling system and being satisfied with nothing less as an air-cooling system. So do we become big, even as the earth and firmaments are big. Like the "Big Man" described by Yuan Tsi (A. D. 210-263), one of China's first romanticists, we "live in heaven and earth as our house."

“Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 150

“The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.”

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”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living

“Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.”

Lin Yutang

"The Epigrams of Lusin"
Variant: Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.

“Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living

“The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious, is it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 13

“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.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 20

“The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. IX : The Enjoyment of Living, p. 249

“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.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 317

“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.”

Lin Yutang

As quoted by Tai-yi Lin (Lin Yutang's daughter) in her Foreword (26 March 1950) to The Importance of Living, p. x

“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.”

Lin Yutang

As quoted in Remarks of Famous People (1965) by Jacob Morton Braude, p. 23

“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.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 155

“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.”

Lin Yutang

On the Wisdom of America (1950), p. xiv

“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.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 36

“A man may own a thousand acres of land, and yet he still sleeps upon a bed of five feet.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 38 (Chinese saying)

“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.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 162

“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.”

Lin Yutang

In Vogue, as quoted by The Reader's Digest, Vols. 30–31 (1937), p. 69

“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.”

Lin Yutang

"The Function of Criticism at the Present Time", in The China Critic, Vol. III, no. 4 (23 January 1930), p. 81

“It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 8

“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.”

Lin Yutang

Between Tears And Laughter (1943), p. 71. Variant: "When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty. When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace. When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice.", as quoted in The World's Funniest Laws (2005) by James Alexander, ISBN 1905102100, p. 6.

“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.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. IV : On Having A Stomach, p. 46

“If life is all subjective, why not be subjectively happy rather than subjectively sad?”

Lin Yutang

On the Wisdom of America (1950), p. 155

“To the West, it seems hardly imaginable that the relationship between man and man (which is morality) could be maintained without reference to a Supreme Being, while to the Chinese it is equally amazing that men should not, or could not, behave toward one another as decent beings without thinking of their indirect relationship through a third party.”

Lin Yutang

Source: My Country and My People (1935), p. 106

“Human life can be lived like a poem.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 32

“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.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 4

“While in the West, the insane are so many that they are put in an asylum, in China the insane are so unusual that we worship them, as anybody who has a knowledge of Chinese literature will testify.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 3

“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 book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 5

“A mellow understanding of life and of human nature is, and always has been, the Chinese ideal of character, and from that understanding other qualities are derived, such as pacifism, contentment, calm and strength of endurance which distinguish the Chinese character.”

Lin Yutang

Source: My Country and My People (1935), p. 43

“He who perceives death perceives a sense of the human comedy, and quickly becomes a poet.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), pp. 39–40

“These influences of my young childhood were greatest: 1, the mountain landscape, 2, my father the impossible idealist, and 3, the upringing of a closely-knit Christian home.”

Lin Yutang

Memoirs of an Octogenarian (1975), pp. 8–9

“I am here to speak on freedom of speech. It is a great topic, and I am going to make my speech as free as possible. But you know that this cannot be done, for when anyone announces that he is going to speak his mind freely, everyone is frightened. This shows that there is no such thing as true freedom of speech. No one can afford to let his neighbors know what he is thinking about them. Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.”

Lin Yutang

" Of Freedom of Speech http://books.google.com/books?id=OM4eT2epYzwC&q=&quot;Society+can+exist+only+on+the+basis+that+there+is+some+amount+of+polished+lying+and+that+no+one+says+exactly+what+he+thinks&quot;&pg=PA95#v=onepage", lecture given in China (4 March 1933)

“A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon from one to five ruined for him already.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 163

“The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

“Such religion as there can be in modern life, every individual will have to salvage from the churches for himself.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 397

“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.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 13

“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.”