Lin Yutang

Author profile

born

October 10, 1895 in Banzi, China

died

March 26, 1976

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction, Reference, Religion & Spirituality

About this author

edit data

Prolific writer of a wide variety of works in Chinese and English; in the 1930s he founded several Chinese magazines specializing in social satire and Western-style journalism.

Lin, the son of a Chinese Presbyterian minister, was educated for the ministry but renounced Christianity in his early 20s and became a professor of English. He traveled to the United States and Europe for advanced study; on his return to China, he taught, edited several English-language journals, and contributed essays to Chinese literary magazines.

In 1932 Lin established the Lunyu banyuekan (“Analects Fortnightly”), a type of Western-style satirical magazine totally new to China at that time. It was highly successful, and he soon introduced two more publications. In...more

combine editions
Books by Lin Yutang

Average rating: 4.09 · 669 ratings · 129 reviews · 55 distinct works

	The Importance Of Living by Lin Yutang, Lin Yutang 4.20 avg rating — 182 ratings — published 1937 — 16 editions	My rating:
	Moment In Peking 4.31 avg rating — 62 ratings — published 1939 — 2 editions	My rating:
	My Country And My People 3.91 avg rating — 58 ratings — published 1935 — 7 editions	My rating:
	The wisdom of China and India 4.39 avg rating — 23 ratings — published 1942 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Una Hoja En La Tormenta / A Leaf in the Storm 3.89 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 1974 — 2 editions	My rating:
	The Wisdom of Confucius 4.00 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 1943 — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Red Peony 3.82 avg rating — 17 ratings	My rating:
	Importance Of Understanding 4.27 avg rating — 15 ratings	My rating:
	Famous Chinese Short Stories 3.78 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 1953 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Lady Wu 3.54 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 1963 — 2 editions	My rating:

More books by Lin Yutang…

Quotes by Lin Yutang

“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live”
― Lin Yutang

tags: life

105 people liked it

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”
― Lin Yutang, The Importance Of Living

tags: life , simplicity

52 people liked it

“I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death”
― Lin Yutang

30 people liked it

See all Lin Yutang's quotes »

Lin's Fans (18)

Lin Yutang

Author profile

combine editionsBooks by Lin Yutang

Quotes by Lin Yutang

combine editions
Books by Lin Yutang