A tendency to fly too straight at a goal, instead of circling around it, often carries one too far.

Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination.

How many of us are able to distinguish between the odors of noon and midnight, or of winter and summer, or of a windy spell and a still one? If man is so generally less happy in the cities than in the country, it is because all these variations and nuances of sight and smell and sound are less clearly marked and lost in the general monotony of gray walls and cement pavements.

We (the Chinese) eat food for its texture, the elastic or crisp effect it has on our teeth, as well as for fragrance, flavor and color.

A cocktail party is a place where you talk with a person you do not know about a subject you have no interest in.

There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.

After all the allowances are made for the necessity of having a few supermen in our midst - explorers, conquerors, great inventors, great presidents, heroes who change the course of history - the happiest man is still the man of the middle class who has earned a slight means of economic independence, who has done a little, but just a little, for mankind and who is slightly distinguished in his community, but not too distinguished.