“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.”
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.
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Lin Yutang 67
Chinese writer 1895–1976Related quotes
“We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be, detested in France.”
As quoted in Wellington and His Friends (1965) by Gerald Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington, p. 138, and in The Economist (16 June 2005) http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4079435
Speech at McKay Events Center in Orem, Utah, September 22, 2000. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/00_09_22mckay.htm.
2000
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 231.
We nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership. Now we regret it (6 May 2016)
“I am a tarsier and a tarsier's son,
the grandson and great-grandson of tarsiers”
"Tarsier"
Poems New and Collected (1998), No End of Fun (1967)
Context: I am a tarsier and a tarsier's son,
the grandson and great-grandson of tarsiers,
a tiny creature, made up of two pupils
and whatever simply could not be left out...
Undated
Source: Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prem_Rawat.