Quote

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

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Lin Yutang
Age: 80 †
Born: 1895
Born: October 10
Died: 1976
Died: March 26
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Philosopher
Translator
Writer
Political
Importance
Threatens
Dream
Civilization
Restoring
Certain
Liberty
Doctrines
Today
Modern
Liberties
Human
Common
Conception
Humans
Values
Doctrine
Averted
Men
Freedom
Changing
Entailed
Life
War
Threat
Undermining

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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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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The wise man reads both books and life itself.
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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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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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China is the greatest mystifying and stupefying fact in the modern world.
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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 only test of a soul's salvation is its inward happiness.
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Happiness has always seemed like a bluebird, and consists of moments.
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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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Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
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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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The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
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The greater success a man has made, the more he fears a climb down.
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There is more hope in a heather rose than in all the tons of Teutonic philosophy.
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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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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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Business men who are busy the whole day and immediately go to bed after supper, snoring like cows, are not likely to contribute anything to culture.
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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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I have done my best. That is about all the philosophy of living one needs.
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