Lin Yutang Quotes
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He who perceives death perceives a sense of the human comedy, and quickly becomes a poet.
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The wise man reads both books and life itself.
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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.
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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.
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If life is all subjective, why not be subjectively happy rather than subjectively sad?
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The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious, is it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.'
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There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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To me personally, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gayly than the average businessman does, for no businessman who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my eyes a philosopher.