Quote

I have a hankering to go back to the Orient and discard my necktie. Neckties strangle clear thinking.

Lin Yutang

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lin Yutang
Age: 80 †
Born: 1895
Born: October 10
Died: 1976
Died: March 26
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Philosopher
Translator
Writer
Clear
Back
Thinking
Necktie
Neckties
Hankering
Orient
Strangle
Discard

More quotes by Lin Yutang

Image
Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey.
Lin Yutang
Image
No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
Lin Yutang
Image
No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
Lin Yutang
Image
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
Image
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.
Lin Yutang
Image
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.
Lin Yutang
Image
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
Image
Nothing matters to a man who says nothing matters.
Lin Yutang
Image
It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action.
Lin Yutang
Image
I have done my best. That is about all the philosophy of living one needs.
Lin Yutang
Image
Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
Lin Yutang
Image
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
Image
There is more hope in a heather rose than in all the tons of Teutonic philosophy.
Lin Yutang
Image
The end of living is the true enjoyment of it.
Lin Yutang
Image
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
Image
The more we justify our beliefs, the more narrow-minded we become.
Lin Yutang
Image
A tendency to fly too straight at a goal, instead of circling around it, often carries one too far.
Lin Yutang
Image
What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?
Lin Yutang
Image
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
Image
Art is both creation and recreation.
Lin Yutang