James Hilton Quotes & Sayings

She really did possess a love for humanity, and the further removed humanity was, both in space and time, the more she loved it. — James Hilton

As most real writers do, he wrote because he had something to say, not because of any specific ambition to be a writer. — James Hilton

My goodness, if you think of all the folks in the world who'd give all they've got to be out of the racket and in a place like this, only they can't get out! Are we in the prison or are they? — James Hilton

For Chips, like some old sea captain, still measured time by the signals of the past ... — James Hilton

Surely there comes a time when counting the cost and paying the price aren't things to think about any more. All that matters is value - the ultimate value of what one does. — James Hilton

You were contemplating the mountain, Mr. Conway?" Came the inquiry.
"Yes, it's a fine sight. It has a name, I suppose?"
"It is called Karakal"
"I don't think I've ever heard of it. Is is very high?"
"Over twenty-eight thousand feet."
"Indeed? I didn't realize there would be anything on that scale outside the Himalayas. Has it been properly surveyed? Whose are the measurements?"
"Whose would you expect, my dear sir? Is there anything incompatible between monasticism and trigonometry? — James Hilton

If I could put it into a very few words, dear sir, I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation. We inculcate the virtue of avoiding excesses of all kinds - even including, if you will pardon the paradox, excess of virtue itself. — James Hilton

If net neutrality goes away, it will fundamentally change everything about the Internet. — James Hilton

Is there not too much tension in the world at present, and might it not be better if more people were slackers? — James Hilton

The right mixture of caring and not caring - I suppose that's what love is. — James Hilton

There's only one thing more important ... and that is, after you've done what you set out to do, to feel that it's been worth doing. — James Hilton

It's a very remarkable story."
"Remarkable's a well-chosen word. It doesn't give you away. — James Hilton

If we have not found the heaven within,we have not found the heaven without — James Hilton

Then the whole range, much nearer now, paled into fresh splendor; a full moon rose, touching each peak in succession like some celestial lamplighter, until the long horizon glittered against a blue-black sky. — James Hilton

Brookfield will never forget his lovableness, said Cartwright, in a speech to the School. Which was absurd, because all things are forgotten in the end. — James Hilton

Have you ever been going somewhere with a crowd and you're certain it's the wrong road and you tell them, but they won't listen, so you just have to plod along in what you know is the wrong direction till somebody more important gets the same idea? — James Hilton

He had, in fact, already begun to sink into that creeping dry rot of pedagogy which is the worst and ultimate pitfall of the profession; giving the same lessons year after year had formed a groove into which the other affairs of his life adjusted themselves with insidious ease. He worked well; he was conscientious; he was a fixture that gave service, satisfaction, confidence, everything except inspiration. — James Hilton

When you are getting on in years (but not ill, of course), you get very sleepy at times, and the hours seem to pass like lazy cattle moving across a landscape. — James Hilton

I used up most of my passions and energies during the years I've mentioned, and though I don't talk much about it, the chief thing I've asked from the world since then is to leave me alone. — James Hilton

You're certain, then, that no human affection can outlast a five-year absence?" "It can, undoubtedly," replied the Chinese, "but only as a fragrance whose melancholy we may enjoy. — James Hilton

And sometimes, when the bell rang for call-over, he would go to the window and look across the road and over the School fence and see, in the distance, the thin line of boys filing past the bench. New times, new names ... but the old ones still remained ... Jefferson, Jennings, Jolyon, Jupp, Kingsley Primus, Kingsley Secundus, Kingsley Tertius, Kingston ... where are you all, where have you all gone to? — James Hilton

But now I'm beginning to care again - a little - and it hurts - it's really more convenient not to have any hopes and fears. — James Hilton

The will of God or the lunacy of man - it seemed to him that you could take your choice, if you wanted a good enough reason for most things. Or, alternatively (and he thought of it as he contemplated the small orderliness of the cabin against the window background of such frantic natural scenery), the will of man and the lunacy of God. — James Hilton

Where had they all gone to, he often pondered; those threads he had once held together, how far had they scattered, some to break, others to weave into unknown patterns? The strange randomness of the world beguiled him, that randomness which never would, so long as the world lasted, give meaning to those choruses again. — James Hilton

When you are getting on in years it is nice to sit by the fire and drink a cup of tea and listen to the school bell sounding dinner, call-over, prep., and lights out. Chips always wound up the clock after that last bell; then he put the wire guard in front of the fire, turned out the gas, and carried a detective novel to bed. Rarely did he read more than a page of it before sleep came swiftly and peacefully, more like a mystic intensifying of perception than any changeful entrance into another world. For his days and nights were equally full of dreaming. — James Hilton

When it comes to believing things without actual evidence, we all incline to what we find most attractive. — James Hilton

People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little. — James Hilton

Are you interested, by the way, in etchings? I have one or two here that are considered to be rather choice. — James Hilton

It is a fragile thing that can only live where fragile things are loved. — James Hilton

-why had she found the story so absorbing? Of course it was quite possible she hadn't. Maybe she merely preferred a novel
any novel
to reading a newspaper or chatting with the girls she worked with all day. And maybe she always read like that
with an air of having surrendered totally to a spell. — James Hilton

We believe that to govern perfectly it is necessary to avoid governing too much. — James Hilton

My friend, it is not an arduous task that I bequeath, for our order knows only silken bonds. To be gentle and patient, to care for the riches of the mind, to preside in wisdom and secrecy while the storm rages without - it will all be very pleasantly simple for you, and you will doubtless find great happiness. — James Hilton

I dislike organized games, swimming pools, fashionable resorts, night clubs, music in restaurants, and political manifestoes; I enjoy driving from coast to coast, good food and drink, a few friends, dogs, the theatre, long walks, music and free conversation. — James Hilton

It seemed to him that the little Manchu had never looked so radiant. She gave him a most charming smile, but her eyes were all for the boy. — James Hilton

The exhaustion of the passions is the beginning of wisdom. — James Hilton

What a host of little incidents, all deep-buried in the past
problems that had once been urgent, arguments that had once been keen, anecdotes that were funny only because one remembered the fun. Did any emotion really matter when the last trace of it had vanished from human memory; and if that were so, what a crowd of emotions clung to him as to their last home before annihilation? He must be kind to them, must treasure them in his mind before their long sleep. — James Hilton

He was a wanderer between two worlds and must ever wander... — James Hilton

They didn't think there was anything very odd in anyone being a little odd. — James Hilton

Miss Brinklow, however, was not yet to be sidetracked. "What do the lamas do?" she continued.
"They devote themselves, madam, to contemplation and to the pursuit of wisdom."
"But that isn't doing anything."
"Then, madam, they do nothing. — James Hilton

Life's more important than a living. So many people who make a living are making death, not life. Don't ever join them. They're the gravediggers of our civilization - The safe men. The compromisers. The moneymakers. The muddlers-through.
Politics is full of them ... so is businesses ... so is the church. They're popular. Successful. Some of them work hard, other are slack, but all of them could tell a good story.
Never where there such charming gravediggers in the world's history. — James Hilton

And there's another thing, too - it don't hurt when you chip me about it. Thick-skinned and tenderhearted, that's my mixture. — James Hilton

Aunt Viney (short for 'Lavinia'), viewed in the grey daylight that came in through the dining-room window, was always a rather imposing spectacle. She was fifty-one years of age, and had large staring eyes, quick bustling movements, more than a tendency to stoutness, a menacing optimism that was not quite matched by a sense of humour, and the most decided opinions upon everything. She was an excellent 'manager', and for more than a decade had lived at the Manse with her sister and brother-in-law and their children (there had been boys at one time), looking after them all with undoubted if rather relentless competence. — James Hilton

The first quarter-century of your life was doubtless lived under the cloud of being too young for things, while the last quarter-century would normally be shadowed by the still darker cloud of being too old for them; and between those two clouds, what small and narrow sunlight illumines a human lifetime! — James Hilton

This storm you talk of ... t will be such a one, my son, as the world has not seen before. There will be no safety by arms, no help from authority, no answer in science. It will rage till every flower of culture is trampled, and all human things are leveled in a vast chaos. — James Hilton

explained Conway, "is a slang word meaning a lazy fellow, a good-for-nothing. — James Hilton

We have reason. It is the entire meaning and purpose of Shangri-La. It came to me in a vision long, long ago. I foresaw a time when man exalting in the technique of murder, would rage so hotly over the world, that every book, every treasure would be doomed to destruction. This vision was so vivid and so moving that I determined to gather together all things of beauty and culture that I could and preserve them here against the doom toward which the world is rushing. Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity crashing headlong against each other. The time must come, my friend, when brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword. For when that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life. And it is our hope that they may find it here. — James Hilton

If I had a child who wanted to be a teacher, I would bid him Godspeed as if he were going to war. For indeed the war against prejudice, greed, and ignorance is eternal, and those who dedicate themselves to it give their lives no less because they may live to see some fraction of the battle won. — James Hilton

The jewel has facets," said the Chinese, "and it is possible that many religions are moderately true. — James Hilton

There are times in life when the most comfortable thing is to do nothing at all. Things happen to you and you just let them happen. — James Hilton

When you grow older you miss that eagerness; life may be happy, you may have health and wealth and love and success, but the odds are that you never look forward as you once did to a single golden day. You never count the hours to it, you never see some moment ahead beckoning like a goddess across a fourth dimension. — James Hilton

On the night before the wedding, when Chips left the house to return to his hotel, she said, with mock gravity: This is an occasion, you know
this last farewell of ours. I feel rather like a new boy beginning his first term with you. Not scared, mind you
but just, for once, in a thoroughly respectful mood. Shall I call you 'sir'
or would 'Mr. Chips' be the right thing? 'Mr. Chips,' I think. Good-bye, then
good-bye, Mr. Chips ... — James Hilton

It did not require a great deal of imagination to picture a world in which power had passed into the hands of Al Capones with their private bombing squadrons. — James Hilton

One had to breathe consciously and deliberately, which, though disconcerting at first, induced after a time an almost ecstatic tranquility of mind. The whole body moved in a single rhythm of breathing, walking, and thinking, the lungs, no longer discrete and automatic, were disciplined to harmony with mind and limb. — James Hilton

And I believe that the Binomial Theorem and a Bach Fugue are, in the long run, more important than all the battles of history. — James Hilton

For London, Blampied claimed, was of all cities in the world the most autumnal - its mellow brickwork harmonizing with fallen leaves and October sunsets, just as the etched grays of November composed themselves with the light and shade of Portland stone. There was a charm, a deathless charm, about a city whose inhabitants went about muttering, "The nights are drawing in," as if it were a spell to invoke the vast, sprawling creature-comfort of winter. — James Hilton

For he did not, he would have said, care for women; he never felt at home or at ease with them; and that monstrous creature beginning to be talked about, the New Woman of the nineties, filled him with horror. He was a quiet, conventional person, and the world, viewed from the haven of Brookfield, seemed to him full of distasteful innovations; there was a fellow named Bernard Shaw who had the strangest and most reprehensible opinions; there was Ibsen, too, with his disturbing plays; and there was this new craze for bicycles which was being taken up by women equally with men. Chips did not hold with all this modern newness and freedom. He had a vague notion, if he ever formulated it, that nice women were weak, timid, and delicate, and that nice men treated them with a polite but rather distant chivalry. — James Hilton

He was, and he knew it, very quietly in love with the little Manchu. His love demanded nothing, not even reply; it was a tribute of the mind, to which his senses added only a flavor. — James Hilton

In a small cathedral town where changes are few, there are always people who remember who used to live in a particular house, what happened to them there and afterwards, and so on. — James Hilton

His guests found it fun to watch him make tea
mixing careful spoonfuls from different caddies. — James Hilton

Laziness in doing stupid things can be a great virtue
Chang - Lost Horizon (1933)
— James Hilton

If you forgive people enough, you belong to them, and they to you, whether either person likes it or not - squatter's rights of the heart — James Hilton

You will have Time, that rare and lovely gift that your Western countries have lost the more they have pursued it. — James Hilton

I often think that the Romans were fortunate; their civilization reached as far as hot baths without touching the fatal knowledge of machinery. — James Hilton

He was not much of a nature-worshipper, but he perceived that nature here was certainly at her best and liveliest. He gave her, as it were, full marks and a nod of approval, feeling that she would do very nicely as a background to his satisfying emotions — James Hilton

And what if it's a trap?" asked Mallinson, but Barnard supplied an answer. "A nice warm trap," he said, "with a piece of cheese in it, would suit me down to the ground. — James Hilton