Top 50 James Hilton Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The right mixture of caring and not caring – I suppose that’s what love is.”

— James Hilton

2. “The exhaustion of the passions is the beginning of wisdom.”

— James Hilton

3. “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

4. “Laziness in doing stupid things can be a great virtue.”

— James Hilton

5. “We believe that to govern perfectly it is necessary to avoid governing too much.”

— James Hilton

6. “Then, my son, when the strong have devoured each other, the Christian ethic may at last be fulfilled, and the meek shall inherit the earth.”

— James Hilton

7. “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

8. “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

9. “He was a wanderer between two worlds and must ever wander...”

— James Hilton

10. “People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little.”

— James Hilton

11. “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

12. “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

13. “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

14. “He was forty-eight – an age at which permanence of habits begins to be predictable.”

— James Hilton

15. “But that was not all. He foresaw a time when men, exultant in the technique of homicide, would rage so hotly over the world that every precious thing would be in danger, every book and picture and harmony, every treasure garnered through two millenniums, the small, the delicate, the defenseless – all would be lost like the lost books of Livy, or wrecked as the English wrecked the Summer Palace in Pekin.”

— James Hilton

16. “There came a time, he realized, when the strangeness of everything made it increasingly difficult to realize the strangeness of anything;.”

— James Hilton

17. “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

18. “Moonlight faded after a time, and with it that distant specter of the mountain; then the triple mischiefs of darkness, cold, and wind increased until dawn. As though at its signal, the wind dropped, leaving the world in compassionate quietude.”

— James Hilton

19. “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

20. “Conway said quietly, “If you’d had all the experiences I’ve had, you’d know that 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

21. “Is there not too much tension in the world at present, and might it not be better if more people were slackers?”

— James Hilton

22. “Perhaps the exhaustion of the passions is the beginning of wisdom, if you care to alter the proverb.”

— James Hilton

23. “You will have Time, that rare and lovely gift that your Western countries have lost the more they have pursued it.”

— James Hilton

24. “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

25. “It is a fragile thing that can only live where fragile things are loved.”

— James Hilton

26. “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

27. “For the first time in his life he felt necessary – and necessary to something that was nearest his heart. There is no sublimer feeling in the world, and it was his at last.”

— James Hilton

28. “When it comes to believing things without actual evidence, we all incline to what we find most attractive.”

— James Hilton

29. “And so it stood, a warm and vivid patch in his life, casting a radiance that glowed in a thousand recollections.”

— James Hilton

30. “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

31. “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

32. “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

33. “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

34. “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

35. “The jewel has facets,” said the Chinese, “and it is possible that many religions are moderately true.”

— James Hilton

36. “I shall be very deeply interested – in due course.”

— James Hilton

37. “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

38. “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

39. “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

40. “What most observers failed to perceive in him was something quite bafflingly simple – a love of quietness, contemplation, and being alone.”

— James Hilton

41. “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

42. “You cannot judge the importance of things by the noise they make.”

— James Hilton

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

— James Hilton

44. “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

45. “No ambitions? And how have you contrived to escape those widespread maladies?”

— James Hilton

46. “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

47. “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

48. “He was surprised to find that beyond his puzzlement he had few misgivings, and none at all on his own behalf. 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.”

— James Hilton

49. “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

50. “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.”

— James Hilton