01c. 1935 ADIf you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to liveLin Yutang / quote ↗
02c. 1935 ADBesides 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 / quote ↗
03c. 1935 ADThose who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise.Lin Yutang / quote ↗
04c. 1935 ADThe 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 / quote ↗
05c. 1935 ADIf 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 / quote ↗
07c. 1935 ADWhen Small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.Lin Yutang / quote ↗
08c. 1935 ADNo one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.Lin Yutang / quote ↗
09c. 1935 ADA 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 / quote ↗
11c. 1935 ADIf 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 / quote ↗
12c. 1935 ADFor 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 / quote ↗
13c. 1935 ADReality - 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 / quote ↗
15c. 1935 ADThere 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 / quote ↗
17c. 1935 ADIn contrast to logic, there is common sense, or still better, the Spirit of Reasonableness.Lin Yutang / quote ↗
18c. 1935 ADSometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do than what one can do.Lin Yutang / quote ↗
19c. 1935 ADPeace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst.Lin Yutang / quote ↗
21c. 1935 ADHope 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 / quote ↗
22c. 1935 ADThis I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.Lin Yutang / quote ↗
23c. 1935 ADSometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do than what one can.Lin Yutang / quote ↗
