Lin Yutang Quotes

I was lucky enough to know exactly what I wanted to do when I was growing up. I think one of the hardest things to figure out in life is what your calling is, and what truly makes you happy - not what you want to work at, but what you want to do.

Making a living and having a life are not the same thing. Making a living and making a life that's worthwhile are not the same thing. Living the good life and living a good life are not the same thing. A job title doesn't even come close to answering the question. "What do you do?".

By the age of 50, I would like to know that I'm not dead - that there's some continuity to my life.

You can't tell what's going to fulfill you in different stages in your life.

The questions I'm asking myself are, 'What makes me happy? Where do I want to be? What will make me happy at 50, 60 and 70?'

You only have one life and if you're not doing what you love, what's the point?

Everyone has wondered if his or her life will ultimately be a happy one.

People spend a lifetime thinking about how they would really like to live. I asked my friends and no one seems to know very clearly. To me it's very clear now. I wish my life could have been like the years when I was writing 'Love in the Time of Cholera.'

My father's only advice is to 'do what makes you happy,' and I follow it religiously.

Everyone wants to be happy at the end of the day. If we can pursue what we really want to do, we don't get bored of life.

We have a lot of depressed people in the world because they don't know what their purpose is in life.

You reach a point at which you have to view your life through the things you've spent so much time doing. The alternative is a perilous feeling of waste.

I've found my purpose in life, definitely.

I'm not like a preacher or philosopher, but at the end of the day, life is about happiness.

Whoever we are, we have to carve something out of our lives. I would like to be on my deathbed going, 'I've enjoyed that. I went through the rollercoaster of it, but I've appreciated it.'

There is a lot more to this life than just the struggle to make money.

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement.

I love my life, because I’ve seen my purpose.

It is no happiness to live long, nor unhappiness to die soon; happy is he that hath lived long enough to die well.

I do not know if I really am a big star. And in fact that is not the most important thing for me. What counts in life is to bring about more of your own dreams. In such a way that your life becomes like a fairy tale. This is what has happened to me, it is just like that.

Life consists of nothing more than the happiness we can get out of it.

I feel blessed. So many men and women search and search but never find their passion, their calling, their sense of mission that would ignite their hearts and fill their lives with meaning and joy.

What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful.