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Life is too short to make an over-serious business out of it.

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
Short
Serious
Business
Make
Life

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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He who is afraid to use an I in his writing will never make a good writer.
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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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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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By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also.
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Neckties strangle clear thinking.
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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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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.
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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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There is more hope in a heather rose than in all the tons of Teutonic philosophy.
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What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?
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Creative work carries with it a form of intense love.
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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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Nobody is ever misunderstood at a fireside he may only be disagreed with.
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The age calls for simple statements and restatements of simple truths. The prophets of doom are involved, those who would bring light must be clear.
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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.
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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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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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My faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier.
Lin Yutang
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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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Happiness has always seemed like a bluebird, and consists of moments.
Lin Yutang