Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutangwas a Chinese writer, translator, linguist and inventor. His informal but polished style in both Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, and his compilations and translations of classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West...
NationalityChinese
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth10 October 1895
CountryChina
food color chinese
We (the Chinese) eat food for its texture, the elastic or crisp effect it has on our teeth, as well as for fragrance, flavor and color.
ideals greater
The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
appreciation understanding done
As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini.
son needs life-is
The best that we can hope for in this life is that we shall not have sons and grandsons of whom we need to be ashamed.
funeral chinese mind
A solemn funeral is inconceivable to the Chinese mind.
mind curious humans
The human mind is a curious thing. It can take just so much and no more.
wild-geese might too-much
A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals.
personality sense-of-humor affair
I distrust all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs and human personalities. Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of the sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom.
men ideas soldier
My faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier.
philosophy eye average
To me personally the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gayly than the average businessman does, for no businessman who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my eyes a philosopher.
loyalty appreciation sweet
What is patriotism but love of the good things we ate in our childhood? I have said elsewhere that the loyalty to Uncle Sam is the loyalty to doughnuts and ham and sweet potatoes and the loyalty to the German Vaterland is the loyalty to Pfannkuchen and Christmas Stollen. As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini... in food, as in death, we feel the essential brotherhood of mankind.
party cocktails cocktail-parties
A cocktail party is a place where you talk with a person you do not know about a subject you have no interest in.
biblical views monkeys
Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey.
heart men may
By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also.