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The end of living is the true enjoyment 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
Life
Enjoyment
Living
True
Ends

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
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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.
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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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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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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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The purpose of a short story is ... that the reader shall come away with the satisfactory feeling that a particular insight into human character has been gained, or that his (or her) knowledge of life has been deepened, or that pity, love or sympathy for a human being is awakened.
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What threatens civilization today is not war, but the changing conception of life values entailed by certain political doctrines. Only by recapturing the dream of human freedom and restoring the importance of the common man's liberties can that undermining threat to modern civilization be averted
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Happiness has always seemed like a bluebird, and consists of moments.
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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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Nothing matters to a man who says nothing matters.
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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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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
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There is more hope in a heather rose than in all the tons of Teutonic philosophy.
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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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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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The wise man reads both books and life itself.
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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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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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The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.
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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.
Lin Yutang