Quote

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

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Lin Yutang
Age: 80 †
Born: 1895
Born: October 10
Died: 1976
Died: March 26
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Philosopher
Translator
Writer
Always
Round
Futile
Rounds
Geese
Wild
Idealism
Ideals
Chase
Danger
Ridicule
Mankind
Vague
Uncritical
Might
Imaginary
Goose
Much
Leading
Lends

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Sometimes there are more tears than laughter, and sometimes there is more laughter than tears, and sometimes you feel so choked you can neither weep nor laugh. For tears and laughter there will always be so long as there is human life. When our tear wells have run dry and the voice of laughter is silenced, the world will be truly dead.
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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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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
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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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The greater success a man has made, the more he fears a climb down.
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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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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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To glorify the past and paint the future is easy, to survey the present and emerge with some light and understanding is difficult.
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China is the greatest mystifying and stupefying fact in the modern world.
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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.
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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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The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious ... it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.
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What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?
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I have a hankering to go back to the Orient and discard my necktie. Neckties strangle clear thinking.
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Few men who have liberated themselves from the fear of God and the fear of death are yet able to liberate themselves from the fear of man.
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The wise man reads both books and life itself.
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Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
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