Lin Yutang

1895-1976, Chinese Writer, Dramatist, Translator

Acceptance
Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst.
The Importance of Living, 1937

Affirmation / Approval
Always admire the good in others, and forget not sometimes to admire the good in yourself.
Looking Beyond

Age / Ageing
It is to be assumed that if man were to live his life like a poem, he would be able to look upon the sunset of his life as his happiest period, and instead of trying to postpone the much feared old age, be able actually to look forward to it, and gradually build up to it as the best and happiest period of his existence.
The Importance of Living , 1937

Appearance / Form
Do not try to appear better than you are, nor worse than is really necessary.
Looking Beyond

Art
The arts are a necessity in human life … It is surprising how men have learned to live without art, feel no need for it at all, let their sensibilities atrophy as it were. Then men become coarse and vulgar.
Ibid.

Art should be a satire and a warning against our paralyzed emotion, our devitalized thinking and our denaturalized living … It should restore us to health and sanity of living and enable us to recover from the fever and delirium caused by too much mental activity. It should sharpen our senses, re-establish the connection between our reason and our human nature, and assemble the ruined parts of a dislocated life again into a whole, by restoring our original nature.
The Importance of Living , 1937

Store up things to say, ideas, feelings, observations of life. Pour yourself out. Then lop off later; you have to have things to lop off from. There are no rules to follow in art, the theater, the novel. You have to find yourself and everything else follows.
Looking Beyond

Attachment
The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heart breaks.
Between Tears and Laughter

Autonomy / Control
As in a democracy, the sovereignty derives ultimately from the individual voter, so in the realm of thinking, the individual is his own authority … man ought to reassert his independence. The mind always dares in the solitude of one's study in the still hours of the night. In such thinking, there is strength.
The Pleasures of a Nonconformist

Let every man have the courage to think for himself. In this capacity of man to think for himself … lies the true motive force of all human progress.
Ibid.