Lin Yutang Quotes

Growing up, I lived a moderate lifestyle with my family.

Probably because I'm from a middle class family, I have that nature in me that I don't get too excited with big things.

I try to be prudent with everything and fortunately I have enough to support me in a nice middle-class lifestyle, while I try to do other things.

I do quite well for myself, but I live a simple life.

I live below my means because it makes what I do seem less like a job and more like a passion.

I've always believed in the concept of retirement. I retired for the first time at age 18 ... from school. To me, retirement means doing what you want to do without worrying about getting paid for it.

Independence may be found in comparative as well as in absolute abundance; I mean where a person contracts his desires within the limits of his fortune.

Being a hero means ignoring how silly you feel.

You must forge your own path for it to mean anything.

But we've got to work. We can't just live on reputations at all - by any means.

Greatness, with private men Esteem'd a blessing, is to me a curse; And we, whom, for our high births, they conclude The happy freemen, are the only slaves. Happy the golden mean!

I had come to a stage in life where I didn't need to earn an income, I didn't need to earn a reputation, I didn't need fame, I didn't need any of the things you might want in your early career.

I'm more interested in what I'm going to leave behind me than in making a big hit record. I've refined what I do for a long time. If getting better at it means it goes over the heads of those who only wanted to party, then so be it.

Don't confuse wealth with success.

When I started Oracle, what I wanted to do was to create an environment where I would enjoy working. That was my primary goal. Sure, I wanted to make a living. I certainly never expected to become rich, certainly not this rich. I mean, rich does not even describe this. This is surreal. And it has nothing to do with money. I mean, you buy clothes with money, and cars. But I really wanted to work with people I enjoyed working with, who I admired and liked.

But I have learned that you make your own happiness, that part of going for what you want means losing something else. And when the stakes are high, the losses can be that much greater.

Listen, my friend, there are two races of beings. The masses teeming and happy - common clay, if you like - eating, breeding, working, counting their pennies; people who just live; ordinary people; people you can't imagine dead. And then there are the others - the noble ones, the heroes. The ones you can quite well imagine lying shot, pale and tragic; one minute triumphant with a guard of honor, and the next being marched away between two gendarmes

We are not slaves of the market. Our human life has a greater meaning than making money, making profit, and working for the market or for multinational corporations.

It was actually a lot more helpful to have Calvin Hart, a cop, as my template. He was also my technical advisor on Shaft. This time, I kinda got to go to Jersey City with him, and hang around, and watch him interact with other cops, people in the projects, and see what it means to be him. People call him 'Big Daddy' and he's this larger-than-life hero to a lot of people.

If economic progress means that we become anonymous cogs in some great machine, then progress is an empty promise.

There's no downside to traveling the world and making money. I'm doing something I love. A lot of people have sucky jobs, but I have a good one, and I'm not trying to lose it any time soon.

I'd rather be working for a paycheck, than waiting to win the lottery. Besides, maybe this time it's different, I mean, I really think you like me.