http://oaks.nvg.org/yutang2.html
While I am sitting here before my desk, a pigeon is flying about a church steeple . . . I know that my lunch is a more complicated affair than the pigeon's, and that the few articles of food I take involve thousands of people at work and a highly complicated system of cultivation, merchandising, transportation, delivery and preparation. [145]
We have this toiling humanity alone, caged and domesticated, but not fed, forced by this civilization and complex society to work and worry about the matter of feeding itself. [145-46]
Civilization is largely a matter of seeking food, while progress is that development which makes food more and more difficult to get . . . This doesn't seem to make very much sense. [146]
The American is known as a great hustler. [148]
I suspect that the American hustler admires the Chinese loafer. [148]
The machine culture is rapidly bringing us nearer to the age of leisure. [149]
American culture, cut short literally and figuratively by the gold rush, may blossom forth again. [150]
Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise. The wisest man is therefore he who loafs most gracefully. [150]
I could never see the beauty of skyscrapers in New York, and it was not until I went to Chicago that I realized that a skyscraper could be very imposing and very beautiful to look at, if it had a good frontage and at least half a mile of unused space around it. [151]
Somehow the high-minded scholar who valued his character more than his achievements, his soul more than fame or wealth, became by common consent the highest ideal of Chinese literature. [153]
Po Yüchien: "I'm too lazy to read the Taoist classics, for Tao doesn't reside in the books; Too lazy to look over the sutras, Too lazy am I to read poetry, Too lazy to drink wine, Too lazy to play chess." [Extracts from The Hall of Idleness] [154]
If men fail to enjoy this earthly existence we have, it is because they do not love life sufficiently and allow it to be turned into a humdrum routine existence. [155]
A vague hope of immortality detracts from our wholehearted enjoyment of this earthly existence. [156]
"Today the sky is clear, the air is fresh and the kind breeze is mild. Truly enjoyable it is to watch the immense universe above and the myriad things below." [Wang Hsichih, "The Orchid Pavilion," CE 353] [157]
We human beings have a limited span of life to live on this earth, . . . therefore we have to arrange our lives so that we may live as happily as we can under a given set of circumstances. [158]
"How are we to live?" Philosophy in the Western sense seems to the Chinese eminently idle . . . it has forgotten to deal with the knowledge of life itself. That is so much tomfoolery and a kind of frivolity, like wooing and courtship without coming to marriage and the producing of children. [160]
Liehtse gave the parable of the Old Man at the Fort:
"An old man was living with his son at an abandoned fort on the top of a hill, and one day he lost a horse. The neighbors came to express their sympathy for this misfortune, and the old man asked "How do you know this is bad luck?"
A few days afterwards, his horse returned with a number of wild horses, and his neighbors came again to congratulate him on this stroke of fortune, and the old man replied, "How do you know this is good luck?"
With so many horses around, his son began to take to riding, and one day he broke his leg. Again the neighbors came around to express their sympathy, and the old man replied, "How do you know this is bad luck?"
The next year, there was a war, and because the old man's son was crippled, he did not have to go to the front."
Evidently this kind of philosophy enables a man to stand a few hard knocks in life. [160]
The illusive rewards of fame are pitched against the tremendous advantages of obscurity. [161]
He who is not wanted by the public can be a carefree individual. [161]
Is life really worth all the bother, to the extent of making our soul a slave to the body? [161]
For a Chinese, nearly right is good enough. [162]
Efficiency, punctuality and the desire for achievement and success . . . are . . . things that make . . . Americans . . . unhappy and so nervous. [162]
Most of the letters are not worth answering. [162]
American water-taps do not leak. That is a consolation. [162]
A Chinese magazine can begin printing serial fiction and forget about it halfway. [163]
The Chinese are extremely punctual, provided you give them plenty of time. [163]
Americans have now come to such a sad state that they are booked up not only for the following day, or the following week, but even for the following month. [163-64]
The American's inability to loaf comes directly from his desire for doing things and in his placing action above being. [164]
The desire of American old men and women for action, trying in this way to gain their self-respect and the respect of the younger generation, is what makes them look so ridiculous to an Oriental. [164]
Character . . . takes time to grow. [164]
The beauty of old men. I think an appreciation of that kind of beauty is essential to our life. [165]