Quote

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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Lin Yutang
Age: 80 †
Born: 1895
Born: October 10
Died: 1976
Died: March 26
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Philosopher
Translator
Writer
Thing
Works
Work
Amount
Men
Alone
Upon
Idea
Bewildering
Living
Imposes
Nature
Imposed
Ideas
Civilization

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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Since the invention of the flush toilet and the vacuum carpet cleaner, the modern man seems to judge a man's moral standards by his cleanliness, and thinks a dog the more highly civilized for having a weekly bath and a winter wrapper round his belly.
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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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The greater success a man has made, the more he fears a climb down.
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The end of living is the true enjoyment of it.
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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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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.
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Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
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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.
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Life is too short to make an over-serious business out of it.
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Neckties strangle clear thinking.
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Happiness has always seemed like a bluebird, and consists of moments.
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Art is both creation and recreation.
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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.
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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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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
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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.
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Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey.
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A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from.
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What threatens civilization today is not war, but the changing conception of life values entailed by certain political doctrines. Only by recapturing the dream of human freedom and restoring the importance of the common man's liberties can that undermining threat to modern civilization be averted
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I have done my best. That is about all the philosophy of living one needs.
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