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

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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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.
Lin Yutang
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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.
Lin Yutang
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All human happiness is sensuous happiness.
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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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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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
Lin Yutang
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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
Lin Yutang
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Nobody is ever misunderstood at a fireside he may only be disagreed with.
Lin Yutang
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We should not expect people to be good, but should make it impossible for them to be bad.
Lin Yutang
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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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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.
Lin Yutang
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The wise man reads both books and life itself.
Lin Yutang
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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.
Lin Yutang
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Creative work carries with it a form of intense love.
Lin Yutang
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I have a hankering to go back to the Orient and discard my necktie. Neckties strangle clear thinking.
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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Business men who are busy the whole day and immediately go to bed after supper, snoring like cows, are not likely to contribute anything to culture.
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.
Lin Yutang
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The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.
Lin Yutang
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Art is both creation and recreation.
Lin Yutang