Quote

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.

Lin Yutang

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lin Yutang
Age: 80 †
Born: 1895
Born: October 10
Died: 1976
Died: March 26
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Philosopher
Translator
Writer
Animal
Forgiveness
Beauty
Pity
Whether
Delight
Shedding
Feels
Cry
Tear
Good
Animals
Crying
Like
Became
Sheer
Beings
Reasoning
Tears
Whoever

More quotes by Lin Yutang

Image
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.
Lin Yutang
Image
What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?
Lin Yutang
Image
The more we justify our beliefs, the more narrow-minded we become.
Lin Yutang
Image
Creative work carries with it a form of intense love.
Lin Yutang
Image
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
Lin Yutang
Image
The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.
Lin Yutang
Image
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
Image
In contrast to logic, there is common sense, or still better, the Spirit of Reasonableness.
Lin Yutang
Image
Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination.
Lin Yutang
Image
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.
Lin Yutang
Image
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.
Lin Yutang
Image
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.
Lin Yutang
Image
I have a hankering to go back to the Orient and discard my necktie. Neckties strangle clear thinking.
Lin Yutang
Image
If one's bowels move, one is happy, and if they don't move, one is unhappy. That is all there is to it.
Lin Yutang
Image
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
Image
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
Lin Yutang
Image
We should not expect people to be good, but should make it impossible for them to be bad.
Lin Yutang
Image
Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.
Lin Yutang
Image
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
Image
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