38 Top Lin Yutang Quotes That Reflect Philosophical Observations Of Life’s Simple Pleasure
Lin Yutang was a celebrated Chinese philosopher, inventor, novelist, translator, and linguist. He is considered to be one of the most illustrious writers of his time because of his colloquial yet impeccable style in both English and Chinese. His translations of the classic Chinese texts into English, and compilations were top sellers in the western part of the world. Some of his other notable works include ‘Letters of a Chinese Amazon and Wartime Essays,’ ‘Da Huang Ji,’ ‘The Importance of Living,’ ‘The Gay Genius,’ ‘Moment in Peeking,’ ‘A Leaf in the Storm,’ ‘My Country and My People,’ etc. We have amassed some notable quotes by Lin Yutang, which have been collected from his works, books, novels, writings, essays, translation, etc. Zoom through the corpus of thoughts by Lin Yutang.
If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live
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.
There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.
No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.
Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise.
What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?
The wise man reads both books and life itself.
When Small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.
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.
Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.
There is so much to love and to admire in this life that it is an act of ingratitude not to be happy and content in this existence.
Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.
If one's bowels move, one is happy, and if they don't move, one is unhappy. That is all there is to it.
Of all the rights of woman, the greatest is to be a mother
This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.
Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination.
And if the reader has no taste for what he reads, all the time is wasted
I regard the discovery of one’s favorite author as the most critical event in one’s intellectual development.
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.
Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can do.
There is no proper time and place for reading. When the mood for reading comes, one can read anywhere
Happiness for me is largely a matter of digestion.
The moment a student gives up his right of personal judgment, he is in for accepting all the humbugs of life
Make No Distinctions
Anyone who wishes to learn to enjoy life must find friends of the same type of temperament, and take as much trouble to gain and keep their friendship as wives take to keep their husbands.
Much as I like reasonable persons, I hate completely rational beings. For that reason, I am always scared and ill at ease when I enter a house in which there are no ash trays.
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it, and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of the nonessentials.
When one's thoughts and experience have not reached a certain point for reading a masterpiece, the masterpiece will leave only a bad flavor on his palate.
