Lin Yutang Quotes

Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent

Under the continual contact with the pebbles my feet have become hardened and used to the ground. My body, almost constantly nude, no longer suffers from the sun. Civilization is falling from me little by little. I am beginning to think simply, to feel only very little hatred for my neighbor - rather, to love him.

There can be no high civilization where there is not ample leisure.

As civilization advances, man grows unconscious of the primitive elements of life; he is separated from them by his perfection of material techniques.

Is civilization only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to baths, diet, exercise, and air?

I believe that Western civilization, after some disgusting glitches, has become almost civilized. I believe it is our first duty to protect that civilization. I believe it is our second duty to improve it. I believe it is our third duty to extend it if we can.

The careful student of history will discover that Christianity has been of very little value in advancing civilization, but has done a great deal toward retarding it.

When people come to play music as they do to play bridge, civilization will have taken the longest stride forward since the beginning of time.

Civilization is the process of reducing the infinite to the finite.

Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be discovered.

In the final analysis, the progress of our civilization will be retarded if any large body of citizens falls behind. Without the help of thousands of others, any one of us would die, naked and starved.

The more civilized we become, the more horrendous our entertainments.

Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarianism must ultimately triumph

There is no salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level.

The more I see of what you call civilization, the more highly I think of what you call savagery!

The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

I don't really talk about my personal life and I don't really talk about my relationships. I'm not a big partier. I like the simplicity of my life, and I've chosen the kind of life I really want to live. I don't think my life is boring at all.

We used to build civilizations. Now we build shopping malls.

Plain living and high thinking are no more. The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws.

You tend to think that your time is either the best or the worst, and then when you have a sense of history, you'll realize actually, no, there were times things were quite gusty in the world. I mean, just think, nowadays most people will say they support the advancement of women, woman has been equal, the fact that we're so aware of the gustiness, in a sense, also speaks about the heightening of our own sensitivity.

Civilization and the life of nations are governed by the same laws as prevail throughout nature and organic life.

Civilization is nothing else but the attempt to reduce force to being the last resort.

For there are strong grounds for thinking that, in the evolution of thought, magic has preceded religion.