Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.

About Lin Yutang

Portrait of Lin Yutang

Lin Yutang (10 October 1895 – 26 March 1976) was a Chinese writer, linguist, and inventor. A prolific bilingual writer in both Chinese and English, he was celebrated for pioneering a humorous prose style in modern Chinese literature and for serving as a cultural bridge between China and the West,...

More quotations from Lin Yutang

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

This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.

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.

How many of us are able to distinguish between the odors of noon and midnight, or of winter and summer, or of a windy spell and a still one? If man is so generally less happy in the cities than in the country, it is because all these variations and nuances of smell and sound are less clearly marked and lost in the general monotony of gray walls and cement pavements.

Let him cry whoever feels like crying, for we were animals before we became reasoning beings, and the shedding of a tear, whether of forgiveness or of pity or of sheer delight at beauty, will do him a lot of good.

crying sadness tears

More quotations tagged with “relaxation”

If you can attain repose and calm, believe that you have seized happiness.

—Julie-Jeanne-Eleonore de Lespinasse

Never lose sight of this important truth, that no one can be truly great until he has gained a knowledge of himself, a knowledge which can only be acquired by occasional retirement.

—Johann Georg von Zimmermann

To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.

We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things [but] there are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

—James Carroll

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

History

11 Jul 2015 Added