Chinese writer (1895-1976)
Once [China] had a destiny. Once she was a conqueror. Now her greatest destiny seems to be merely to exist, to survive.
LIN YUTANG
My Country and My People
The humour of the Chinese people in inventing gunpowder and finding its best use in making firecrackers for their grandfathers' birthdays is merely symbolical of their inventiveness along merely pacific lines.
LIN YUTANG
My Country and My People
Is it not tragic, for example, that while in the last World War almost everyone believed it was the war to end all wars and wanted to make it so, now in this Second World War almost no writer that I have read dares even suggest that this is the war to end all wars, or act on that belief? We have lost the courage to hope.
LIN YUTANG
Between Tears and Laughter
There is more hope in a heather rose than in all the tons of Teutonic philosophy.
LIN YUTANG
preface, Between Tears and Laughter
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
The Importance of Living
Only friendship which can stand occasional plain speaking is worth having.
LIN YUTANG
Between Tears and Laughter
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
The Wisdom of China
[China] is the least concerned about her own salvation. Like a good gambler, she took the loss of a slice of territory the size of Germany itself without a wince.
LIN YUTANG
preface, My Country and My People
All women's dresses, in every age and country, are merely variations on the eternal struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress.
LIN YUTANG
The Chinese Mercury, 1937
I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content.
LIN YUTANG
epilogue, My Country and My People
All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell.
LIN YUTANG
The Importance of Living
I am here to speak on freedom of speech. It is a great topic, and I am going to make my speech as free as possible. But you know that this cannot be done, for when anyone announces that he is going to speak his mind freely, everyone is frightened. This shows that there is no such thing as true freedom of speech. No one can afford to let his neighbors know what he is thinking about them. Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.
LIN YUTANG
lecture, Mar. 4, 1933
The only part of Christian teachings which will be truly accepted by the Chinese people is Christ's injunction to be "harmless as doves" but "wise as serpents."
LIN YUTANG
My Country and My People
I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing.
LIN YUTANG
preface, The Importance of Living
The man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world.
LIN YUTANG
The Importance of Living
There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.
LIN YUTANG
The Importance of Living
I am able to confess because, unlike these patriots, I am not ashamed of my country. And I can lay bare her troubles because I have not lost hope. China is bigger than her little patriots, and does not require their whitewashing. She will, as she always did, right herself again.
LIN YUTANG
preface, My Country and My People
Everything has its place and time. We men of the nineteen-forties can smile at the mistakes of the nineteen-thirties, and, in turn, the men of the nineteen-fifties will laugh at the mistakes of the nineteen-forties. It is this historical perspective that shall save us.
LIN YUTANG
Between Tears and Laughter
A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon from one to five ruined for him already.
LIN YUTANG
The Importance of Living
For every good book is worth the reader's while when there is a real communion of the spirit, and this is possible only when he feels he is being taken into the author's confidence and the author is willing to reveal to him the innermost searchings of his heart and talk, as it were, in an unbuttoned mood, collar and tie loose, as by a friend's fireside.
LIN YUTANG
Between Tears and Laughter