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The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.

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
Wise
Never
Men
Longevity
Busy

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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I have done my best. That is about all the philosophy of living one needs.
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A tendency to fly too straight at a goal, instead of circling around it, often carries one too far.
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What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?
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The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.
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Creative work carries with it a form of intense love.
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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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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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The wise man reads both books and life itself.
Lin Yutang
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The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
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Neckties strangle clear thinking.
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The greater success a man has made, the more he fears a climb down.
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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.
Lin Yutang
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On the whole, the enjoyment of leisure is something which decidedly costs less than the enjoyment of luxury. All it requires is an artistic temperament which is bent on seeking a perfectly useless afternoon spent in a perfectly useless manner.
Lin Yutang
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If one's bowels move, one is happy, and if they don't move, one is unhappy. That is all there is to it.
Lin Yutang
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By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also.
Lin Yutang
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If man be sensible and one fine morning, while he is lying in bed, counts at the tips of his fingers how many things in this life truly will give him enjoyment, invariably he will find food is the first one.
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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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We should not expect people to be good, but should make it impossible for them to be bad.
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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As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini.
Lin Yutang