Lost Horizon Quotes
"The evening, however, was far from dull. We had a good view of the big Lufthansa machines as they arrived at the aerodrome from all parts of Central Europe, and towards dusk, when arc flares were lighted, the scene took on a rich, theatrical brilliance."
"The probability that he was making much more money and having a more interesting life than either of us gave Wyland and me our one mutual emotion—a touch of envy."
"It seemed likely that nothing but the fact of being three celibate Englishmen in a foreign capital could have brought us together."
"The fact is, Conway isn’t dead. At least he wasn’t a few months ago."
"I don’t think I should have done quite as much for anyone else."
"He was tall and extremely good-looking, and not only excelled at games but walked off with every conceivable kind of school prize."
"There was something rather Elizabethan about him—his casual versatility, his good looks, that effervescent combination of mental with physical activities."
"I’ve spent a good deal of my life traveling about, and I know there are queer things in the world—if you see them yourself, that is, but not so often if you hear of them secondhand."
"One of the hardest things for a non-Catholic to realize is how easily a Catholic can combine official rigidity with non-official broad-mindedness."
"He gave a Speech Day oration in Greek, I recollect, and was outstandingly first-rate in school theatricals."
"The vision attracted, but did not stir him; there was a sense in which he felt that he was still a part of all that he might have been."
"He was the sort of man who, being used to major hardships, expected minor comforts by way of compensation."
"He had grown to hate the perils of trench warfare in France, and had several times avoided death by declining to attempt valorous impossibilities."
"He was so used to being appealed to for help that mere awareness of someone who would neither ask nor need it was slightly tranquilizing, even amidst the greater perplexities of the future."
"Putting up a fight without a decent chance of winning is a poor game, and I’m not that sort of hero."
"No one was capable of harder work, when it had to be done, and few could better shoulder responsibility; but the facts remained that he was not passionately fond of activity, and did not enjoy responsibility at all."
"What most observers failed to perceive in him was something quite bafflingly simple—a love of quietness, contemplation, and being alone."
"The icy rampart of the Karakorams was now more striking than ever against the northern sky, which had become mouse-colored and sinister; the peaks had a chill gleam; utterly majestic and remote, their very namelessness had dignity."
"He did not, in fact, care for excessive striving, and he was bored by mere exploits."
"The whole situation, no doubt, was appalling, but he had no power at the moment to resent anything that proceeded so purposefully and with such captivating interest."
"It was an almost perfect cone of snow, simple in outline as if a child had drawn it, and impossible to classify as to size, height or nearness."
"There were moments in life when one opened wide one’s soul just as one might open wide one’s purse if an evening’s entertainment were proving unexpectedly costly but also unexpectedly novel."
"One had to breathe consciously and deliberately, which, though disconcerting at first, induced after a time an almost ecstatic tranquillity of mind."
"I think you’ve come through a trying ordeal extraordinarily well, better than I should at your age."
"Believe me, in arriving here the worst that can have happened is that we’ve exchanged one form of lunacy for another."
"You are twenty-four years old, and you’re somewhere about two and a half miles up in the air: those are reasons enough for anything you may happen to feel at the moment."
"We inculcate the virtue of avoiding excess of all kinds—even including, if you will pardon the paradox, excess of virtue itself."
"It was superb and exquisite. An austere emotion carried the eye upward from milk-blue roofs to the gray rock bastion above, tremendous as the Wetterhorn above Grindelwald."
"That the East can take from the West. I often think that the Romans were fortunate; their civilization reached as far as hot baths without touching the fatal knowledge of machinery."
"Whatever it was, if it existed at all, it had relieved Barnard’s breathlessness and Mallinson’s truculence; both had dined well, finding satisfaction in eating rather than talk."
"Providence has sent me here. I regard it as a call."
"We may as well give the place the once-over while we’re here. I reckon it’ll be a long time before any of us pay a second visit."
"In a world of increasing noise and hugeness, he turned in private to gentle, precise, and miniature things."
"I enjoy reading, of course, but my work during recent years hasn’t supplied many opportunities for the studious life."
"It is a pleasure to see you, Mr. Conway. I sent for you because I thought we should do well to have a talk together. Please sit down beside me and have no fear. I am an old man and can do no one any harm."
"The whole game WAS doubtless going to pieces, but fortunately the players were not as a rule put on trial for the pieces they had failed to save."
"We believe that to govern perfectly it is necessary to avoid governing too much."
"There is no good in doing a thing because you like doing it."
"The jewel has facets, and it is possible that many religions are moderately true."
"But what about the lamas? Don’t they ever want to use them? They yield place with much gladness to their honored guests."
"Anyhow, I don’t see why I shouldn’t make a beginning by studying the language."
"The air was cold and still; the mighty spire of Karakal looked nearer, much nearer than by daylight."
"I reckon some folks have to get used to worse places."
"It should be tasted, of course, very slowly—not only in reverence and affection, but to extract the fullest degree of pleasure."
"This is a famous lesson that we may learn from Kou Kai Tchou, who lived some fifteen centuries ago. He would always hesitate to reach the succulent marrow when he was eating a piece of sugarcane, for, as he explained—‘I introduce myself gradually into the region of delights.’"
"Mozart has an austere elegance which we find very satisfying. He builds a house which is neither too big nor too little, and he furnishes it in perfect taste."
"Laziness in doing stupid things can be a great virtue."
"You will have time to read—never again will you skim pages to save minutes, or avoid some study lest it prove too engrossing."
"The years will come and go, and you will pass from fleshly enjoyments into austerer but no less satisfying realms; you may lose the keenness of muscle and appetite, but there will be gain to match your loss; you will achieve calmness and profundity, ripeness and wisdom, and the clear enchantment of memory."
"And, most precious of all, you will have Time—that rare and lovely gift that your Western countries have lost the more they have pursued it."
"He looked back then on his long life, as I have already told you, and it seemed to him that all the loveliest things were transient and perishable, and that war, lust, and brutality might someday crush them until there were no more left in the world."
"There came a time when the strangeness of everything made it increasingly difficult to realize the strangeness of anything; when one took things for granted merely because astonishment would have been as tedious for oneself as for others."
"The horizon lifted like a curtain; time expanded and space contracted."
"It can, undoubtedly, but only as a fragrance whose melancholy we may enjoy."
"I don’t know whether I ought to congratulate you—you seem to have been granted the best of both worlds, a long and pleasant youth behind you, and an equally long and pleasant old age ahead."
"There is only one valley of Blue Moon, and those who expect to find another are asking too much of nature."
"Time is like some balked monster, waiting outside the valley to pounce on the slackers who have managed to evade him longer than they should."
"It is significant that the English regard slackness as a vice. We, on the other hand, should vastly prefer it to tension."
"Your new acquaintance, for instance, discerns that the really big moment of his entire life occurred when he was a young man visiting a house in which there lived an old parson and his three daughters."
"Shangri-La was always tranquil, yet always a hive of unpursuing occupations."
"The mountains gleamed around in a hedge of inaccessible purity, from which his eyes fell dazzled to the green depths of the valley; the whole picture was incomparable."
"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."
"There will be no safety by arms, no help from authority, no answer in science."
"The parallel is not quite exact. For those Dark Ages were not really so very dark—they were full of flickering lanterns."
"You will conserve the fragrance of our history and add to it the touch of your own mind."
"It was quite motionless, and the eyes were closed."
"He watched for a while, and presently, as part of a dream, it came to him that the High Lama was dead."
"I’m sorry," he said. Partly to test his nerve and the reality of his sensations he lit a cigarette."
"It’s a question of a few rather important details."
"The whole business has been like that, from the beginning."
"Her beauty, Mallinson, like all other beauty in the world, lies at the mercy of those who do not know how to value it."
"The appeal, half-passionate and half-derisive, helped Conway to collect himself."
"And they will all be here, my son, hidden behind the mountains in the valley of Blue Moon, preserved as by miracle for a new Renaissance…"