James Herriot Quotes

That quotation about not having time to stand and stare has never applied to me. I seem to have spent a good part of my life - probably too much - in just standing and staring and I was at it again this morning.

Give me a window and I'll stare out it.

If you've never stared off into the distance, then your life is a shame.

I sit at my window gazing The world passes by, nods to me And is gone.

You see more sitting still than chasing after.

You spend your time thinking about that and you get lost in reflection.

Doing nothing is sometimes one of the highest of the duties of man.

They used to complain at school that I looked out of the window for long periods of time - that sums up my life. I like to look out the window, do nothing, daydream.

Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the thing you can't hear, and not bothering.

Attention is riveted on what is tangible, useful, instantly available; the stimulus for deeper thought and reflection may be lacking. Yet human beings have a vital need for time and inner quiet to ponder and examine life and its mysteries... Understanding and wisdom are the fruit of a contemplative eye upon the world, and do not come from a mere accumulation of facts, no matter how interesting.

As before, there is a great silence, with no end in sight. The writer surrenders, listening.

If you sit on the doorstep long enough, I daresay you will think of something

When there's nothing to do, you do nothing slowly and intently.

We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things....but, there are times when we must stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or in its memory. We listen, and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

He had been (Thinking? Praying?) It was all the same thing.

To think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world's sky.

One sits down first; one thinks afterwards.

If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death Perhaps the world can teach us as when everything seems dead but later proves to be alive.

Fishing provides time to think, and reason not to. If you have the virtue of patience, an hour or two of casting alone is plenty of time to review all you’ve learned about the grand themes of life.

Sometimes I sits and thinks. Other times I sits and drinks, but mostly I just sits.

All that was neither a city, nor a church, nor a river, nor color, nor light, nor shadow: it was reverie. For a long time, I remained motionless, letting myself be penetrated gently by this unspeakable ensemble, by the serenity of the sky and the melancholy of the moment. I do not know what was going on in my mind, and I could not express it; it was one of those ineffable moments when one feels something in himself which is going to sleep and something which is awakening.

Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes.

I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right.

To lose one's self in reverie, one must be either very happy, or very unhappy. Reverie is the child of extremes.