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O wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! How inscrutable is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play!

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
Forget
Terribly
Living
Toil
Play
Gray
Work
Civilization
Men
Hair
Worry
Wise
Humanity
Inscrutable

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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
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Winter in Peking is insurpassable, unless indeed it is surpassed by the other seasons in that blessed city. For Peking is a city clearly marked by the seasons, each perfect in its own way and each different from the others.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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Nobody is ever misunderstood at a fireside he may only be disagreed with.
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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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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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I have a hankering to go back to the Orient and discard my necktie. Neckties strangle clear thinking.
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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 Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.
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Creative work carries with it a form of intense love.
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In contrast to logic, there is common sense, or still better, the Spirit of Reasonableness.
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Everything has its place and time. We men of the nineteen-forties can smile at the mistakes of the nineteen-thirties, and, in turn, the men of the nineteen-fifties will laugh at the mistakes of the nineteen-forties. It is this historical perspective that shall save us.
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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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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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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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Let us face ourselves bravely as we are. For only a philosophy that recognizes reality can lead us into true happiness, and only that kind of philosophy is sound and healthy.
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Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
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