1
If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to liveLin Yutang
2
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
3
Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise.Lin Yutang
4
The man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, in respect to time and space. His life falls into a set routine; he is limited to contact and conversation with a few friends and acquaintances, and he sees only what happens in his immediate neighbourhood. From this prison there is no escape. But the moment he takes up a book, he immediately enters a different world, and if it is a good book, he is immediately put in touch with one of the best talkers of the world. This talker leads him on and carries him into a different country or a different age, or unburdens to him some of his personal regrets, or discusses with him some special line or aspect of life that the reader knows nothing about. An ancient author puts him in communion with a dead spirit of long ago, and as he reads along, he begins to imagine what the ancient author looked like and what type of person he was.Lin Yutang
5
If one's bowels move, one is happy, and if they don't move, one is unhappy. That is all there is to it.Lin Yutang
6
The wise man reads both books and life itself.Lin Yutang
7
When Small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.Lin Yutang
8
No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.Lin Yutang
9
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.Lin Yutang
10
What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?Lin Yutang
11
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 willgive him enjoyment, invariably he will find food is the first one.Lin Yutang
12
For a Westerner, it is usually sufficient for a proposition to be logically sound. For a Chinese it is not sufficient that a proposition be logically correct, but it must be at the same time in accord with human nature.Lin Yutang
13
Reality - Dreams = Animal BeingReality + Dreams = A Heart-Ache (usually called Idealism)Reality + Humor = Realism (also called Conservatism)Dreams - Humor = FanaticismDreams + Humor = FantasyReality + Dreams + Humor = WisdomLin Yutang
14
Every man must find his own philosophy, his attitude towards life.Lin Yutang
15
There is a certain proper and luxurious way of lying in bed. Confucius, that great artist of life, "never lay straight" in bed, "like a corpse", but always curled up on one side. I believe one of the greatest pleasures of life is to curl up one's legs in bed. The posture of the arms is also very important, in order to reach the greatest degree of aesthetic pleasure and mental power. I believe the best posture is not lying flat on the bed, but being upholstered with big soft pillows at an angle of thirty degrees with either one arm or both arms placed behind the back of one's head.Lin Yutang
16
Happiness for me is largely a matter of digestion.Lin Yutang
17
In contrast to logic, there is common sense, or still better, the Spirit of Reasonableness.Lin Yutang
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Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do than what one can do.Lin Yutang
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Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst.Lin Yutang
20
A solemn funeral is inconceivable to the Chinese mind.Lin Yutang
21
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.Lin Yutang
22
This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.Lin Yutang
23
Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do than what one can.Lin Yutang
24
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.Lin Yutang
25
Society can only exist on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.Lin Yutang
26
All women's dresses are merely variations on the eternal struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress.Lin Yutang
27
Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.Lin Yutang
28
No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.Lin Yutang
29
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