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The more we justify our beliefs, the more narrow-minded we become.

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
Minded
Narrow
Justify
Beliefs
Belief
Become

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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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By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also.
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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
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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.
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Nothing matters to a man who says nothing matters.
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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
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A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from.
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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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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.
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Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
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The most bewildering thing about man is his idea of work and the amount of work he imposes upon himself, or civilization has imposed upon him. All nature loafs, while man alone works for a living.
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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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Neckties strangle clear thinking.
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China is the greatest mystifying and stupefying fact in the modern world.
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Life is too short to make an over-serious business out of it.
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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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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.
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The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
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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.
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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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