Lin Yutang Quotes

89 Sourced Quotes

This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.

Lin Yutang
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

Lin Yutang
I am here to speak on freedom of speech. It is a great topic, and I am going to make my speech as free as possible. But you know that this cannot be done, for when anyone announces that he is going to speak his mind freely, everyone is frightened. This shows that there is no such thing as true freedom of speech. No one can afford to let his neighbors know what he is thinking about them. 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
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
Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.

Lin Yutang
The question that faces every man born into this world is not what should be his purpose, which he should set about to achieve, but just what to do with life? The answer, that he should order his life so that he can find the greatest happiness in it, is more a practical question, similar to that of how a man should spend his weekend, then a metaphysical proposition as to what is the mystic purpose of his life in the scheme of the universe.

Lin Yutang
Such religion as there can be in modern life, every individual will have to salvage from the churches for himself.

Lin Yutang
A tendency to fly too straight at a goal, instead of circling around it, often carries one too far.

Lin Yutang
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
True peace of mind comes from accepting the worst. Psychologically, I think it means a release of energy.

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

Lin Yutang
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.

Lin Yutang
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
Men resort to talking only when they haven't the power to enforce their convictions upon others.

Lin Yutang
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
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.

Lin Yutang
We all have obligations and duties toward our fellow men. But it does seem curious enough that in modern neurotic society, men's energies are consumed in making a living and rarely in living itself. It takes a lot of courage for a man to declare, with clarity and simplicity, that the purpose of life is to enjoy it.

Lin Yutang
I distrust all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs and human personalities. Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of the sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom.

Lin Yutang
Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can do.

Lin Yutang
To open the window and let a wasp out of the room. Ah, is this not happiness?

Lin Yutang
Such is human psychology that if we don't express our joy, we soon cease to feel it.

Lin Yutang
By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also.

Lin Yutang
One can learn such a lot and enjoy such a lot in seventy years, and three generations is a long, long time to see human follies and acquire human wisdom. Anyone who is wise and has lived long enough to witness the changes of fashion and morals and politics through the rise and fall of three generations should be perfectly satisfied to rise from his seat and go away saying, "It was a good show," when the curtain falls.

Lin Yutang
It is that unoccupied space which makes a room habitable, as it is our leisure hours which make life endurable.

Lin Yutang
To have just finished repaying all one's debts. Ah, is this not happiness?

Lin Yutang
It is not when he is working in his office but when he is lying idly on the sand that his soul utters, "Life is beautiful."

Lin Yutang
There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.

Lin Yutang
No child is born with a really cold heart, and it is only in proportion as we lose that youthful heart that we lose the inner warmth in ourselves.

Lin Yutang
It has been raining for a whole month and I lie in bed in the morning like one drunk or ill, refusing to get up. Suddenly I hear a chorus of birds announcing a clear day. Quickly I pull aside the curtain, push open the window and see the beautiful sun shining and glistening and the forest looks like having a bath. Ah, is this not happiness?

Lin Yutang