Quote

Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.

Lin Yutang

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Lin Yutang
Age: 80 †
Born: 1895
Born: October 10
Died: 1976
Died: March 26
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Philosopher
Translator
Writer
Success
Thinks
Thinking
Exactly
Life
Exist
Amount
Says
Literature
Polished
Lying
Basis
Society
Bases

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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
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It is not dirt but the fear of dirt which is the sign of man's degeneration, and it is dangerous to judge a man's physical and moral sanity by outside standards.
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O wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! How inscrutable is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play!
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Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.
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Art is both creation and recreation.
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What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?
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As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini.
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By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also.
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Today we are afraid of simple words like goodness and mercy and kindness. We don't believe in the good old words because we don't believe in good old values anymore. And that's why the world is sick.
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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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He who is afraid to use an I in his writing will never make a good writer.
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Such is human psychology that if we don't express our joy, we soon cease to feel it.
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All human happiness is sensuous happiness.
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Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do.
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The wise man reads both books and life itself.
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Nobody is ever misunderstood at a fireside he may only be disagreed with.
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China is the greatest mystifying and stupefying fact in the modern world.
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Let him cry whoever feels like crying, for we were animals before we became reasoning beings, and the shedding of a tear, whether of forgiveness or of pity or of sheer delight at beauty, will do him a lot of good.
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However vague they are, dreams have a way of concealing themselves and leave us no peace until they are translated into reality, like seeds germinating underground, sure to sprout in their search for the sunlight.
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The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.
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