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In contrast to logic, there is common sense, or still better, the Spirit of Reasonableness.

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
Stills
Still
Better
Reasonableness
Contrast
Logic
Common
Sense
Spirit

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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There are no books in this world that everybody must read, but only books that a person must read at a certain time in a given place under given circumstances and at a given period of his life.
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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.
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The greater success a man has made, the more he fears a climb down.
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Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination.
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The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.
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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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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.
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Now it is characteristic of play that one plays without reason and there must be no reason for it. Play is its own good reason.
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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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I have done my best. That is about all the philosophy of living one needs.
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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
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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
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The only test of a soul's salvation is its inward happiness.
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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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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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In the West, the insane are so many that they are put in an asylum, in China the insane are so unusual that we worship them.
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Art is both creation and recreation.
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The more we justify our beliefs, the more narrow-minded we become.
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The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
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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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