Quotes by Lin Yutang

“If one's bowels move, one is happy, and if they don't move, one is unhappy. That is all there is to it.”

“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.”

“Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise.”

“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 ...”

“The wise man reads both books and life itself.”

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. ”

“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.”

“When Small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.”

“In contrast to logic, there is common sense, or still better, the Spirit of Reasonableness.”

“What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?”

“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 fi...”

“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 acc...”

“Reality - Dreams = Animal BeingReality + Dreams = A Heart-Ache (usually called Idealism)Reality + Humor = Realism (also called Conservatism)Dreams - Humor = FanaticismDreams + Humor = FantasyRealit...”

“Every man must find his own philosophy, his attitude towards life.”

“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 t...”

“Happiness for me is largely a matter of digestion.”

“Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.”

“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.”

“Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst.”