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The greater success a man has made, the more he fears a climb down.

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
Success
Made
Men
Climb
Climbs
Fears
Greater

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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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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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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Today we are afraid of simple words like goodness and mercy and kindness. We don't believe in the good old words because we don't believe in good old values anymore. And that's why the world is sick.
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The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
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China is the greatest mystifying and stupefying fact in the modern world.
Lin Yutang
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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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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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By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also.
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Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
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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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.
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I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living.
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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.
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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What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?
Lin Yutang
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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
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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.
Lin Yutang
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Such is human psychology that if we don't express our joy, we soon cease to feel it.
Lin Yutang
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In contrast to logic, there is common sense, or still better, the Spirit of Reasonableness.
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