James Hilton > Quotes

“People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little.”
― James Hilton, Lost Horizon

“The right mixture of caring and not caring - I suppose that's what love is.”
― James Hilton, Nothing So Strange

“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, Random Harvest

“if we have not found the heaven within,we have not found the heaven without”
― James Hilton, Lost Horizon

“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, Lost Horizon

“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, Random Harvest

“We believe that to govern perfectly it is necessary to avoid governing too much.”
― James Hilton, Lost Horizon

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

“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, Lost Horizon

“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 Definitive James Hilton Collection

“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, Good-Bye, Mr. Chips

“It is significant ..... that the English regard slackness as a vice. We, on the other hand, should vastly prefer it to tension. Is there not too much tension in the world at present, and might it not be better if more people were slackers?”
― James Hilton, Lost Horizon

“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, Lost Horizon

“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, the will of man and the lunacy of God.”
― James Hilton, Lost Horizon

“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, Lost Horizon

“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, Time and Time Again

“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, Good-Bye, Mr. Chips

“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, Good-Bye, Mr. Chips

“...they didn’t think there was anything very odd in anyone being a little odd.”
― James Hilton, Random Harvest

“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, Good-Bye, Mr. Chips

“Laziness in doing stupid things can be a great virtue.”
― 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, Lost Horizon

“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, Random Harvest

“It's a very remarkable story."
"Remarkable's a well-chosen word. It doesn't give you away.”
― James Hilton, Random Harvest

“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, Random Harvest

“Laziness in doing stupid things can be a great virtue...”
― James Hilton, Lost Horizon

“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, Lost Horizon

“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, Good-Bye, Mr. Chips

“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, Lost Horizon: A Novel of Shangri-La