Lin Yutang Quotes

For this too is a very pleasant strand woven into the Cynic's pattern of life; he must needs be flogged like an ass, and while he is being flogged he must love the men who flog him, as though he were the father or brother of them all.

This is approximately the way Christendom relates to the essentially Christian, the unconditioned. After seventeen, eighteen detours and running all around someone finally has his finite existence assured, and then we receive a sermon about Seek first the kingdom of God. Is this sobriety or is this intoxication? p. 112

I’ve been through hell and back, and I’m grateful for every scar, I look at the woman I was in my 20s and I see a young lady growing into confidence but intent on pleasing everyone around her. I now feel so much more beautiful, so much sexier, so much more interesting. And so much more powerful.

I marvel at how one role model can alter for the better the future of a young student. This experience taught me that valuable advice can sometimes come from an unexpected source, and chance events can sometimes open new doors.

From the time they turned one they were tossed from the balconies of the kitchens, first with life preserves so they would lose their fear of the water, and then without life preservers so they would lose their respect for death.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

Unbelievable! To hear my father grouped together with Elvis Presley, William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, it's a dream.

Li Yi-an was the greatest poetess of China. Once her husband asked one of his friends to pick out the best lines that he liked from a number of his poems, having, however, concealed in them some pieces by his wife. The friend picked out, to his dismay, only lines from her pen.

When someone says 'my people' with a specific stress on the blackness of those people, they are after kingdoms and permanently child-like slaves. 'The people' are never going to rise above the status of 'the people'. They are going to be told what is good for them by the 'mother' and the 'father'.

Allah is the Greatest. I'm just the greatest boxer.

Ain’t nothing an old man can do for me but bring me a message from a young one.

Well, for me the greatest of all marathons is of course the olympic marathon, but second place is Boston.

Did I? That was extremely immodest and foolish of me, my apologies. I would never dare to be so presumptuous. I am only interested in the legacy my father has left behind, and I would like to work towards giving it strength and respect for as long as I live.

I'm not the greatest; I'm the double greatest. Not only do I knock 'em out, I pick the round

?I regard the Ramayana of Tulsi Das,” says Gandhi, “as the greatest book in all devotional literature.”

And, at the risk of losing forever your so remarkably candid friendship, let me tell you something. Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford, and you are not that young any more.