Lin Yutang Quotes
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.
Quotes to Explore
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We must never forget that Black History is American History. The achievements of African Americans have contributed to our nation's greatness.
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Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.
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I listen to KCRW in the car and Pandora radio, which I stream through the stereo from my iPhone. I've been listening to everything from Caribou to Conway Twitty. If I'm going on a longer car ride, I'll download some podcasts.
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There was a strange atmosphere on the set because we were filming in this large house, which was used for troubled children. You'd go in and find walls had been burnt down. The building was charged with this history and it stayed with us throughout the filming.
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The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself.
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As much as I don't want to admit it, my fans are the only ones that can hurt my feelings when they're not pleased with what I'm presenting. I want it to be perfect for them. I want them to have a different sense of pride in my music.
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Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.
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There was no United States before slavery. I am sure somebody can make some sort of argument about modern French identity and slavery and North Africa, but there simply is no American history before black people.
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Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage.
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History is the heavy traffic that prevents us from crossing the road. We wait, more or less patiently, for it to pause, so that we can get to the liquor store or the laundromat or the burger bar.
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The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.
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I really like all of the characters in 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt, especially Camilla, the one girl. I find her fascinating.
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Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.
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History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.
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An anxious unrest, a fierce craving desire for gain has taken possession of the commercial world, and in instances no longer rare the most precious and permanent goods of human life have been madly sacrificed in the interests of momentary enrichment.
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I think if you come from a history of persecution you have to develop a sense of humour.
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In boxing, there are no bad guys or good guys. Just people trying to make a living and trying to live up to their pride and to try to become someone.
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If God should desire to raise us to the position of one who is an intimate and shares his secrets, we ought to accept this gladly.
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Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.
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History will remember the inhabitants of this century as the people who went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years, only to languish for the next 30 in low Earth orbit. At the core of the risk-free society is a self-indulgent failure of nerve.
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I am convinced that it is one of the most unjust wars that has ever been fought in the history of the world. Our involvement in the war in Vietnam has torn up the Geneva Accord. It has strengthened the military-industrial complex; it has strengthened the forces of reaction in our nation. It has put us against the self-determination of a vast majority of the Vietnamese people, and put us in the position of protecting a corrupt regime that is stacked against the poor.
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What counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before.
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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.
