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He who is afraid to use an I in his writing will never make a good writer.

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
Never
Afraid
Writer
Use
Writing
Make
Good

More quotes by Lin Yutang

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China is the greatest mystifying and stupefying fact in the modern world.
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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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All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell.
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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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Now it is characteristic of play that one plays without reason and there must be no reason for it. Play is its own good reason.
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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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No man is inherently respectable, but all women are by nature.
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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.
Lin Yutang
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This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.
Lin Yutang
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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.
Lin Yutang
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There is more hope in a heather rose than in all the tons of Teutonic philosophy.
Lin Yutang
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I have done my best. That is about all the philosophy of living one needs.
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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.
Lin Yutang
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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
Lin Yutang
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Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do.
Lin Yutang
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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.
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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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
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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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The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.
Lin Yutang