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This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.

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
Function
Humor
Literature
Thought
Change
Character
Conceive
Chemical
Chemicals

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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Business men who are busy the whole day and immediately go to bed after supper, snoring like cows, are not likely to contribute anything to culture.
Lin Yutang
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All human happiness is sensuous happiness.
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Nobody is ever misunderstood at a fireside he may only be disagreed with.
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My faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier.
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No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
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Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
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It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action.
Lin Yutang
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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.
Lin Yutang
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All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell.
Lin Yutang
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The purpose of a short story is ... that the reader shall come away with the satisfactory feeling that a particular insight into human character has been gained, or that his (or her) knowledge of life has been deepened, or that pity, love or sympathy for a human being is awakened.
Lin Yutang
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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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What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?
Lin Yutang
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Art is both creation and recreation.
Lin Yutang
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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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China is the greatest mystifying and stupefying fact in the modern world.
Lin Yutang
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Nothing matters to a man who says nothing matters.
Lin Yutang
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Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
Lin Yutang
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I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living.
Lin Yutang
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The greater success a man has made, the more he fears a climb down.
Lin Yutang
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A tendency to fly too straight at a goal, instead of circling around it, often carries one too far.
Lin Yutang