187 Quotes by Lin Yutang

One dies without regret if there is one in the whole world a “bosom friend,” or one who “knows his heart.

With the predominance of economic problems and economic thinking, which is overshadowing all other forms of human thinking, we remain completely ignorant of, and indifferent to, a more humanized knowledge and a more humanized philosophy, a philosophy that deals with the problems of the individual life.

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.

Only he who handles his ideas lightly is master of his ideas, and only he who is master of his ideas is not enslaved by them.

And if the reader has no taste for what he reads, all the time is wasted.

There is no proper time and place for reading. When the mood for reading comes, one can read anywhere.

A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o’clock has the whole afternoon ruined for him already.

When we demand liberty of a person as a constitutional right, we are taking away from the officials their liberty to chop off people’s heads.

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