Quote

Since the invention of the flush toilet and the vacuum carpet cleaner, the modern man seems to judge a man's moral standards by his cleanliness, and thinks a dog the more highly civilized for having a weekly bath and a winter wrapper round his belly.

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
Moral
Judge
Toilets
Cleaner
Seems
Winter
Carpet
Cleaners
Men
Thinks
Belly
Cleanliness
Thinking
Dog
Highly
Vacuums
Standards
Civilized
Bath
Judging
Round
Vacuum
Wrapper
Modern
Rounds
Toilet
Flush
Since
Invention
Baths
Weekly

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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Art is both creation and recreation.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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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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This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.
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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 Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.
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Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination.
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I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it. All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth.
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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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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.
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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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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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All women's dresses, in every age and country, are merely variations on the eternal struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress.
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He who is afraid to use an I in his writing will never make a good writer.
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I have done my best. That is about all the philosophy of living one needs.
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Neckties strangle clear thinking.
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Happiness has always seemed like a bluebird, and consists of moments.
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