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Neckties strangle clear thinking.

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
Neckties
Strangle
Management
Clear
Thinking

More quotes by 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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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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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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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.
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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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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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He who is afraid to use an I in his writing will never make a good writer.
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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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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However vague they are, dreams have a way of concealing themselves and leave us no peace until they are translated into reality, like seeds germinating underground, sure to sprout in their search for the sunlight.
Lin Yutang
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The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
Lin Yutang
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The more we justify our beliefs, the more narrow-minded we become.
Lin Yutang
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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.
Lin Yutang
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I have done my best. That is about all the philosophy of living one needs.
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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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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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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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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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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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
Lin Yutang