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Art is both creation and recreation.

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
Recreation
Creation
Art

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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Life is too short to make an over-serious business out of it.
Lin Yutang
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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.
Lin Yutang
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The only test of a soul's salvation is its inward happiness.
Lin Yutang
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The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious ... it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.
Lin Yutang
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An educated man is one who has the loves and hatreds together.
Lin Yutang
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The most bewildering thing about man is his idea of work and the amount of work he imposes upon himself, or civilization has imposed upon him. All nature loafs, while man alone works for a living.
Lin Yutang
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The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
Lin Yutang
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Sometimes there are more tears than laughter, and sometimes there is more laughter than tears, and sometimes you feel so choked you can neither weep nor laugh. For tears and laughter there will always be so long as there is human life. When our tear wells have run dry and the voice of laughter is silenced, the world will be truly dead.
Lin Yutang
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I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it. All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth.
Lin Yutang
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Reality - Dreams = Animal Being Reality + Dreams = A Heart-Ache (usually called Idealism) Reality + Humor = Realism (also called Conservatism) Dreams - Humor = Fanaticism Dreams + Humor = Fantasy Reality + Dreams + Humor = Wisdom
Lin Yutang
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He who is afraid to use an I in his writing will never make a good writer.
Lin Yutang
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The more we justify our beliefs, the more narrow-minded we become.
Lin Yutang
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To glorify the past and paint the future is easy, to survey the present and emerge with some light and understanding is difficult.
Lin Yutang
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Let us face ourselves bravely as we are. For only a philosophy that recognizes reality can lead us into true happiness, and only that kind of philosophy is sound and healthy.
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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Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do.
Lin Yutang
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The wise man reads both books and life itself.
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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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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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.
Lin Yutang