Lin Yutang Quotes

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.

The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.

A good traveler is one who who does not know where he is going to , and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from.

when after a perfect dinner I lounge in an armchair, when there is no one I hate to look at in the company and conversation rambles off at a light pace to an unknown destination, and I am spiritually and physically at peace with the world;

Our task is not so much discovery as re-discovery. What one needs is not so much thinking as remembering. Sometimes it suffices to sit quietly and listen well, when venerable men have thought before us. Constant forgettings of truths once perceived are the very charm of the human mind; the history of human thought is nothing more than the story of these forgettings and rememberings and forgettings again.

that it is not when he is working in the office but when he is lying idly on the sand that his soul utters, “Life is beautiful

All men and women have passions, natural desires and noble ambitions, and also a conscience; they have sex, hunger, fear, anger, and are subject to sickness, pain, suffering and death. Culture consists in bringing about the expression of these passions and desires in harmony.

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.

The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.

The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach.

Make No Distinctions

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.

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.

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.

Beside the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone.