Lin Yutang citations (68 citations, Page 2)

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.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang livre 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?”

Help us translate this quote

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.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang

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

“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.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang livre The Importance of Living

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

“Human life can be lived like a poem.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

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.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang livre The Importance of Living

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

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

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang livre The Importance of Living

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

“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.”

Help us translate this quote

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.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang

" Of Freedom of Speech http://books.google.com/books?id=OM4eT2epYzwC&q="Society+can+exist+only+on+the+basis+that+there+is+some+amount+of+polished+lying+and+that+no+one+says+exactly+what+he+thinks"&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.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

Lin Yutang livre The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 12
Contexte: 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.