Lin Yutang: Quotes about life

Lin Yutang was Chinese writer. Explore interesting quotes on life.

Lin Yutang: 134 quotes19 likes

“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)

“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...

“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.

“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).

“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

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

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

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

“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

“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

“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.”