187 Quotes by Lin Yutang

I have done my best. That is about all the philosophy of living one needs.

There is a great probability that our loss of capacity for enjoying the positive joys of life is largely due to the decreased sensibility of our senses and our lack of full use of them. All human happiness is sensuous happiness.

Even in despair, man must laugh.

Love is an immortal wound that cannot be closed up. A person loses something, a part of her soul, when she loves someone. And she goes about looking for that lost part of her soul, for she knows that otherwise she is incomplete and cannot be at rest. It is only when she is with the person she loves that she becomes complete again in herself; but the moment he leaves, she loses that part which he has taken with him and knows no rest till she has found him once more.

The dog which remembers only to bark and not to bite, and is led through the streets as a lady's pet, is only a degenerate wolf.

The more we justify our beliefs, the more narrow-minded we become.

Any good practical philosophy must start out with the recognition of our having a body.

The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous.

All human beings are like travelers floating down the eternal river of time, embarking at a certain point and disembarking again at another point in order to make room for others waiting below the river to come aboard.