Quote

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.

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
Characteristics
Plays
Reason
Without
Play
Must
Good
Characteristic

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
Lin Yutang
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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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Such is human psychology that if we don't express our joy, we soon cease to feel it.
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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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A tendency to fly too straight at a goal, instead of circling around it, often carries one too far.
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Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
Lin Yutang
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What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?
Lin Yutang
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The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.
Lin Yutang
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The end of living is the true enjoyment of it.
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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India was China's teacher in religion and imaginative literature, and the world's teacher in trignometry, quandratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian Nights, animal fables, chess, as well as in philosophy, and that she inspired Boccaccio, Goethe, Herder, Schopenhauer, Emerson, and probably also old Aesop.
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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In contrast to logic, there is common sense, or still better, the Spirit of Reasonableness.
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.
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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It is not dirt but the fear of dirt which is the sign of man's degeneration, and it is dangerous to judge a man's physical and moral sanity by outside standards.
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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Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
Lin Yutang
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Let him cry whoever feels like crying, for we were animals before we became reasoning beings, and the shedding of a tear, whether of forgiveness or of pity or of sheer delight at beauty, will do him a lot of good.
Lin Yutang
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The only test of a soul's salvation is its inward happiness.
Lin Yutang