“
If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.
”
”
Frédéric Bastiat
“
If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans. You’ve nothing to worry about there.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
I don't think he ever gave a thought to other people's opinions, which was just as well because they were often unkind
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small #1-2))
“
Why Dream?
Life is a difficult assignment. We are fragile creatures, expected to function at high rates of speed, and asked to accomplish great and small things each day. These daily activities take enormous amounts of energy. Most things are out of our control. We are surrounded by danger, frustration, grief, and insanity as well as love, hope, ecstasy, and wonder. Being fully human is an exercise in humility, suffering, grace, and great humor. Things and people all around us die, get broken, or are lost. There is no safety or guarantees.
The way to accomplish the assignment of truly living is to engage fully, richly, and deeply in the living of your dreams. We are made to dream and to live those dreams.
”
”
SARK (Make Your Creative Dreams Real: A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy People, and People Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day)
“
Every morning, arising from the death of sleep, the happy plants and all our fellow animal creatures great and small, and even the rocks, seemed to be shouting, "Awake, awake, rejoice, rejoice, come love us and join in our song. Come! Come!
”
”
John Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“
This old man had once told me that he left school when he was twelve, whereas I had spent most of the twenty-four years in my life in study. Yet when I looked back on the last hour or so I could come to only one conclusion. I'd had more of books, but he had more of learning.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Wise and Wonderful (All Creatures Great and Small, #5-6))
“
At times it seemed unfair that I should be paid for my work; for driving out in the early morning with the fields glittering under the first pale sunshine and the wisps of mist still hanging on the high tops.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small #1-2))
“
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.
”
”
James Herriot (It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet (All Creatures Great and Small, #2))
“
Once, very long ago, Time fell in love with Fate. This, as you might imagine, proved problematic. Their romance disrupted the flow of time. It tangled the strings of fortune into knots. The stars watched from the heavens nervously, worrying what might occur. What might happen to the days and nights were time to suffer a broken heart? What catastrophes might result if the same fate awaited Fate itself? The stars conspired and separated the two. For a while they breathed easier in the heavens. Time continued to flow as it always had, or perhaps imperceptibly slower. Fate weaved together the paths that were meant to intertwine, though perhaps a string was missed here and there. But eventually, Fate and Time found each other again. In the heavens, the stars sighed, twinkling and fretting. They asked the Moon her advice. The Moon in turn called upon the parliament of owls to decide how best to proceed. The parliament of owls convened to discuss the matter amongst themselves night after night. They argued and debated while the world slept around them, and the world continued to turn, unaware that such important matters were under discussion while it slumbered. The parliament of owls came to the logical conclusion that if the problem was in the combination, one of the elements should be removed. They chose to keep the one they felt more important. The parliament of owls told their decision to the stars and the stars agreed. The Moon did not, but on this night she was dark and could not offer her opinion. So it was decided, and Fate was pulled apart. Ripped into pieces by beaks and claws. Fate’s screams echoed through the deepest corners and the highest heavens but no one dared to intervene save for a small brave mouse who snuck into the fray, creeping unnoticed through the blood and bone and feathers, and took Fate’s heart and kept it safe. When the furor died down there was nothing else left of Fate. The owl who consumed Fate’s eyes gained great site, greater site then any that had been granted to a mortal creature before. The Parliament crowned him the Owl King. In the heavens the stars sparkled with relief but the moon was full of sorrow. And so time goes as it should and events that were once fated to happen are left instead to chance, and Chance never falls in love with anything for long. But the world is strange and endings are not truly endings no matter how the stars might wish it so. Occasionally Fate can pull itself together again. And Time is always waiting.
”
”
Erin Morgenstern (The Starless Sea)
“
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.
The purple headed mountain,
The river running by,
The sunset, and the morning,
That brightens up the sky.
The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasent summer sun,
The ripe fruit in the garden,
He made them every one.
He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell,
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.
”
”
Cecil Frances Alexander
“
It's not reasonable to love people who are only going to die," she said.
Nash thought about that for a moment, stroking Small's neck with great deliberation, as if the fate of the Dells depended on that smooth, careful movement.
"I have two responses to that," he said finally. "First, everyone's going to die. Second, love is stupid. It has nothing to do with reason. You love whomever you love. Against all reasons I loved my father." He looked at her keenly. "Did you love yours?"
"Yes," she whispered.
He stroked Small's nose. "I love you," he said, "even knowing you'll never have me. And I love my brother, more than I ever realized before you came along. You can't help whom you love, Lady. Nor can you know what it's liable to cause you to do."
She made a connection then. Surprised she sat back from him and studied his face, soft with shadows and light. She saw a part of him she hadn't seen before.
"You came to me for lessons to guard your mind," she said, "and you stopped asking me to marry you, both at the same time. You did those things out of love for your brother."
"Well" he said, looking a bit sheepishly at the floor. "I also took a few swings at him, but that's neither here nor there."
"You're good at love," she said simply, because it seemed to her that it was true. "I'm not so good at love. I'm like a barbed creature. I push everyone I love away."
He shrugged. "I don't mind you pushing me away if it means you love me, little sister.
”
”
Kristin Cashore (Fire (Graceling Realm, #2))
“
When all t'world goes one road, I go t'other.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small #1-2))
“
When the human race learns to read the language of symbolism, a great veil will fall from the eyes of men. They shall then know truth and, more than that, they shall realize that from the beginning truth has been in the world unrecognized, save by a small but gradually increasing number appointed by the Lords of the Dawn as ministers to the needs of human creatures struggling co regain their consciousness of divinity.
”
”
Manly P. Hall (Melchizedek and the Mystery of Fire)
“
If you decide to become a veterinary surgeon you will never grow rich but you will have a life of endless interest and variety.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1))
“
Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishing frigid winter after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one is certain.
And yet, there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined, it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given - so we track it, in linear fashion piece by piece. Time however can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was is; everything that ever will be is - and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we image that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is.
”
”
Mark Helprin (Winter's Tale)
“
No animal is a better judge of comfort than a cat
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
She’s out, Jim! The bugger’s out!” Well this was great. Anybody who has driven a car with a hysterical cat hurtling around the interior will appreciate my situation.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
Why had I entered this profession? I could have gone in for something easier and gentler—like coalmining or lumberjacking.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Wise and Wonderful (All Creatures Great and Small, #3))
“
He devoted a considerable amount of his acute intelligence to the cause of doing as little as possible.
”
”
James Herriot (If Only They Could Talk (All Creatures Great and Small, #1))
“
Larry, wouldn't it be a fine thing, a swell thing, a boon to the community of man and to all creatures great and small, if this girl's soul was as ripe and stunning as her ass.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas)
“
All young animals are appealing but the lamb has been given an unfair share of charm.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
Over the years I knew her she always looked at me like that - as though I was a quite pleasant but amusing object - and it always did the same thing to me. It's difficult to put into words but perhaps I can best describe it by saying that if I had been a little dog I'd have gone leaping and gambolling around the room wagging my tail furiously.
”
”
James Herriot (Let Sleeping Vets Lie (All Creatures Great and Small, #3))
“
he devoted a considerable amount of his acute intelligence to the cause of doing as little as possible. Tristan did, in fact, spend much of his time sleeping in a chair.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
He was polishing the glass with a dead hen.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
The true shaman, the true naturalist, works to reconnect conscious human life with Nature and Spirit through totems and ritual.
”
”
Ted Andrews (Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small)
“
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
”
”
Cecil Frances Alexander
“
If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them, you will not know them, And what you do not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys. — Chief Dan George
”
”
Ted Andrews (Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small)
“
Our relatedness with other living forms provides us something we sorely need: a reverence for the life of all creatures great and small, and an expanded view of our place in nature–not as rulers over it, but as participants in it.
”
”
Larry Dossey (Recovering the Soul: A Scientific and Spiritual Approach)
“
It was to a moribund horse, and Mr. Sidlow, describing the treatment to date, announced that he had been pushing raw onions up the horse’s rectum; he couldn’t understand why it was so uneasy on its legs. Siegfried had pointed out that if he were to insert a raw onion in Mr. Sidlow’s rectum, he, Mr. Sidlow, would undoubtedly be uneasy on his legs.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
as long as a man can pay ’is way, he’s got enough.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Wise and Wonderful (All Creatures Great and Small, #3))
“
There have been times in my life when, confronted by black and hopeless circumstances, I have discovered in myself undreamed-of resources of courage and resolution.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #2))
“
I went back to my conversation with Siegfried that morning; we had just about decided that the man with a lot of animals couldn't be expected to feel affection for individuals among them. But those buildings back there were full of John Skipton's animals - he must have hundreds. Yet what made him trail down that hillside every day in all weathers? Why had he filled the last years of those two old horses with peace and beauty? Why had he given them a final ease and comfort which he had withheld from himself? It could only be love.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small #1-2))
“
The dog did not move as the needle was inserted, and, as the barbiturate began to flow into the vein, the anxious expression left his face and the muscles began to relax. By the time the injection was finished, the breathing had stopped.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
Everybody was asleep. Everybody except me, James Herriot, creeping sore and exhausted towards another spell of hard labour. Why the hell had I ever decided to become a country vet? I must have been crazy to pick a job where you worked seven days a week and through the night as well. Sometimes I felt as though the practice was a malignant, living entity; testing me, trying me out; putting the pressure on more and more to see just when at what point I would drop down dead.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
I can't bear it, Mr. Herriot. He was like a Christian was that pig, just like a Christian.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small #1-2))
“
Looking back, I realise it was one of the bravest things I have ever done.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #2))
James Herriot (Every Living Thing (All Creatures Great and Small, #8))
“
own. I am sure that is what the family remembered best about me because of the way the mother’s letter began. “Dear Vet with the bandaged finger …
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
They had a toughness and a philosophical attitude which was new to me. Misfortunes which would make the city dweller want to bang his head against a wall were shrugged off with “Aye, well, these things
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1))
“
No matter what the universe has in store, it cannot take away from the fact that you were born. You’ll have some joy and some pain, and all the other experiences that make up what it’s like to be a tiny part of a grand cosmos. No matter what happens next, you were here. And even when any record of our individual lives is lost to the ages, that won’t detract from the fact that we were. We lived. We were part of the enormity. All the great and terrible parts of being alive, the shocking sublime beauty and heartbreak, the monotony, the interior thoughts, the shared pain and pleasure. It really happened. All of it. On this little world that orbits a yellow star out in the great vastness. And that alone is cause for celebration.
”
”
Sasha Sagan (For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World)
“
I pulled a packet of Cold Flake from my pocket. “Cliff, you’re a marvel. Will you have a cigarette?” “It ’ud be like givin’ a pig a strawberry,” the little man replied,
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
You don’t find cows with names any more and there aren’t any farmers like Mr. Dakin, who somehow scratched a living from a herd of six milkers plus a few calves, pigs and hens.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
Every day lasts a year. I never enjoy anything. And every morning when I wake up I dread having to face the world again.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
Siegfried once told me he had spent half a morning trying to stuff a uterus up a cow’s rectum. What really worried him, he said, was that he nearly succeeded)
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
Animals are unpredictable things so our whole life is unpredictable. It’s a long tale of little triumphs and disasters and you’ve got to really like it to stick it.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
Sometimes in our job you feel you just can't win. If you take too long you're no good, if you're too quick the visit wasn't necessary.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #3-4))
“
AS I CRAWLED INTO bed and put my arm around Helen it occurred to me, not for the first time, that there are few pleasures in this world to compare with snuggling up to a nice woman when you are half frozen.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1))
“
Friend of fatherless!
Fountain of happiness!
Lord of the swill-bucket! Oh, how my soul is on
Fire when I gaze at thy
Calm and commanding eye.
Like the sun in the sky,
Comrade Napoleon!
Thou are the giver of
All thy creatures love,
Full belly twice a day, clean straw to roll upon;
Every beast great or small,
Sleeps at peace in his stall,
Thou watchest over all,
Comrade Napoleon!
Had I a sucking-pig,
Ere he had grown as big
Even as a pint bottle or a a rolling-pin
He should have learned to be
Faithful and true to thee,
Yes, his first squeak should be
Comrade Napoleon!
”
”
George Orwell (Animal Farm)
“
...and just then the thin boy yawned. I had labelled him as an ineffectual sort of lad but he certainly could yawn; it was a stretching, groaning, voluptuous paroxysm which drowned my words and it went on and on till he finally lay back, bleary and exhausted by the effort.
”
”
James Herriot (Let Sleeping Vets Lie (All Creatures Great and Small, #3))
“
There has always been a 'and this is where I come in' feeling about a night call. And as my lights swept the cobbles of the deserted market place it was there again, a sense of returning to fundamentals, of really being me.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
nearly mad before you cleaned
”
”
James Herriot (Every Living Thing (All Creatures Great and Small, #5))
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1))
“
need nerves of steel to be a parent.
”
”
James Herriot (The Lord God Made Them All (All Creatures Great and Small, #4))
“
But I was beginning to realise that life was not a tidy little parcel at any time.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #2))
“
I was really sloshing around in my trough of self-pity
”
”
James Herriot (The Lord God Made Them All (All Creatures Great and Small, #4))
“
What we consider imagination is a reality in some form on levels beyond the normal sensory world.
”
”
Ted Andrews (Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small)
“
great waves seemed to billow from him – impatience, frustration, criticism, irritation.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small)
“
My mind went back to that picture in the obstetrics book. A cow standing in the middle of a gleaming floor while a sleek veterinary surgeon in a spotless parturition overall inserted his arm to a polite distance. He was relaxed and smiling, the farmer and his helpers were smiling, even the cow was smiling. There was no dirt or blood or sweat anywhere.
That man in the picture had just finished an excellent lunch and had moved next door to do a bit of calving just for the sheer pleasure of it, as a kind of dessert. He hadn't crawled shivering from his bed at two o'clock in the morning and bumped over twelve miles of frozen snow, staring sleepily ahead till the lonely farm showed in the headlights. He hadn't climbed half a mile of white fell-side to the doorless barn where his patient lay.
”
”
James Herriot (If Only They Could Talk (All Creatures Great and Small, #1))
“
Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before--and thus was the Empire forged.
...In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of it.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
“
... a bullock, backing in alarm from the halter, crashed its craggy behind into my midriff. The wind shot out of me in a sharp hiccup, then the animal decided to turn round in the narrow passage, squashing me like a fly against the railings. I was pop-eyed as it scrambled round; I wondered whether the creaking was coming from my ribs or the wood behind me.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
I freely admit that I have many times adopted Jim Oakley’s precept of a “bloody good gallop,” often with spectacular results. To this day I frequently learn things from farmers, but that was one time when I learned from a postman.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
We cannot repeat too often the great lesson of freudian psychology: that repression is normal self-protection and creative self-restriction-in a real sense, man's natural substitute for instinct. Rank has a perfect, key term for this natural human talent: he calls it "partialization" and very rightly sees that life is impossible without it. What we call the well-adjusted man has just this capacity to partialize the world for comfortable action. I have used the term "fetishization," which is exactly the same idea: the "normal" man bites off what he can chew and digest of life, and no more. In other words, men aren't built to be gods, to take in the whole world; they are built like other creatures, to take in the piece of ground in front of their noses. Gods can take in the whole of creation because they alone can make sense of it, know what it is all about and for. But as soon as a man lifts his nose from the ground and starts sniffing at eternal problems like life and death, the meaning of a rose or a star cluster-then he is in trouble. Most men spare themselves this trouble by keeping their minds on the small problems of their lives just as their society maps these problems out for them. These are what Kierkegaard called the "immediate" men and the "Philistines." They "tranquilize themselves with the trivial"- and so they can lead normal lives.
”
”
Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death)
“
Then the bull shook himself, turned his head and looked at us. There was an awed whisper from one of the young men: “By gaw, it’s working!” I enjoyed myself after that. I can’t think of anything in my working life that has given me more pleasure than standing in that pen directing the life-saving jet and watching the bull savouring it.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures—the creatures of this chronicle among the rest—along the roads that lay before them.
”
”
Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)
“
THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE at the vein, this small and petty creature. This is the bedrock of your life. Father Earth is right to despise you, but do not be ashamed. You may be a monster, but you are also great.
”
”
N.K. Jemisin (The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1))
“
There wasn’t much of her, in fact she must have been one of the smallest women I have ever seen—around five feet high—but there was a core of steel in her. She had her own mind and her own way of doing things.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #2))
“
And I could find other excuses to get out and sit on the crisp grass and look out over the airy roof of Yorkshire. It was like taking time out of life. Time to get things into perspective and assess my progress.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
It took me longer than I thought and it seemed to me that the calf was beginning to lose patience with me because when its head was forced out by the cow’s contractions we were eye to eye and I fancied the little creature was giving me a disgusted “For heaven’s sake get on with it” look.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #2))
“
There are great days ahead!
”
”
James Herriot (The Lord God Made Them All (All Creatures Great and Small, #7))
“
He must have kicked the door open because it flew back viciously against the rubber stop and rebounded almost into his face.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1))
“
the feeling of cold emptiness, of having nothing to offer, made the journey a misery.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #2))
“
Fred had trocharised a bloated cow and the farmer had been so impressed by the pent up gas hissing from the abdomen that Fred had got carried away and applied his cigarette lighter to the canula. A roaring sheet of flame had swept on to some straw bales and burned the byre to the ground.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1))
“
Life was full for me. There were so many things to find out and a lot I had to prove to myself. The days were quick and challenging and they pressed on me with their very newness. But it all stopped here in the garden. Everything seemed to have stopped here a long time ago. I looked back before going through the door into the yard and it was like suddenly coming across a picture in an old book; the empty, wild garden and the tall, silent house beyond. I could never quite believe it was there and that I was a part of it.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
It is said that once upon a time St. Kevin was kneeling with his arms stretched out in the form of a cross in Glendalough. . . As Kevin knelt and prayed, a blackbird mistook his outstretched hand for some kind of roost and swooped down upon it, laid a clutch of eggs in it and proceeded to nest in it as if it were the branch of a tree. Then, overcome with pity and constrained by his faith to love all creatures great and small, Kevin stayed immobile for hours and days and nights and weeks, holding out his hand until the eggs hatched and the fledging grew wings, true to life if subversive of common sense, at the intersection of natural process and the glimpsed ideal, at one and the same time a signpost and a reminder. Manifesting that order of poetry where we can at last grow up to that which we stored up as we grew.
”
”
Seamus Heaney (Crediting Poetry: The Nobel Lecture)
“
But Siegfried held up a restraining hand. “Just one moment,” he slurred. “The windscreen is very dirty. I’ll give it a rub for you.” The ladies watched him silently as he weaved round to the back of the car and began to rummage in the boot. The love light had died from their eyes. I don’t know why he took the trouble; possibly it was because, through the whisky mists, he felt he must re-establish himself as a competent and helpful member of the party. But the effort fell flat; the effect was entirely spoiled. He was polishing the glass with a dead hen.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
Every single one of us appears seemingly from nowhere and then, eventually, returns to nowhere. We are conceived, we grow, and we die, but what happens beyond that is a great, haunting mystery. We grapple with it by marking how and when things change here on Earth, both cyclically and permanently.
”
”
Sasha Sagan (For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World)
“
The clever economists who tell us that we don’t need British agriculture and that our farms should be turned into national parks seem to ignore the rather obvious snag that an unfriendly country could starve us into submission in a week. But to me a greater tragedy still would be the loss of a whole community of people like
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Wise and Wonderful (All Creatures Great and Small, #3))
“
Though in her late thirties, she had no fears of spinsterhood because she had been assiduously courted for fifteen years by Charlie Hudson from the Darrowby fish shop and though Charlie was not a tempestuous suitor there was nothing flighty about him and he was confidently expected to pop the question over the next ten years or so. Mr.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
Maybe ye don’t know it, Mr. Herriot, but this is the best time of your life.” “Do you think so?” “Aye, there’s no doubt about it. When your children are young and growin’ up around ye—that’s when it’s best. It’s the same for everybody, only a lot o’ folk don’t know it and a lot find out when it’s too late. It doesn’t last long, you know.
”
”
James Herriot (The Lord God Made Them All (All Creatures Great and Small, #4))
“
The more doors you open to the mysteries, or sacred knowledge, the smaller you feel. And because you begin to feel smaller and smaller until your ego disappears, the more humble you become. Therefore, any man who behaves arrogantly with what little he knows, or claims to know all, only reveals to all that he really knows nothing. Real greatness does not reside inside those who feel large. The truly wise are meek. Yet being small and meek do not make one weak. Arming oneself with true knowledge generates strong confidence and a bold spirit that makes you a lion of God. The Creator does not want you to suffer, yet we are being conditioned by society to accept suffering, weak and passive dispositions under the belief that such conditions are favorable by God. Weakness is not a virtue praised by God. How could he desire for you to be weak if he tells us to stand by our conscience? Doing so requires strength. However, there is a difference between arrogance when inflating your ego, and confidence when one truly gets closer to God. One feels large, while the other feels small. Why? Because a man of wisdom understands that he is just a small pea in a sea of infinite atoms, and that in the end — we are all connected. And did you not know that the smaller a creature is, the bolder its spirit?
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
His favourite ploy was to push his leg round the corner of the table and withdraw it repeatedly just as the cat pawed at it. Oscar was justifiably irritated by this teasing but showed his character by lying in wait for Tristan one night and biting him smartly in the ankle before he could start his tricks.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
His name is Tristan, by the way."
"Tristan?"
"Yes. Oh, I should have told you. You must have wondered about my own name. It was my father. Great Wagnerian. It nearly ruled his life. It was music all the time -- mainly Wagner.
"I'm a bit partial myself."
"Ah well, yes, but you didn't get it morning, noon and night like we did. And then to be stuck with a name like Siegfried. Anyway, it could have been worse-- Wotan, for instance.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small #1-2))
“
Only then did I understand. Only then did I see the crystal outline of my past and future, conceive of what was above me (innumerable star, incalculable space) and what was below me (miles of mindless dirt and stone). I understood that knowledge was a dwarfing obliterating, all-consuming thing, and to have it was to both be grateful and suffer greatly. I was a creature so small, trapped in some crevice of an indifferent universe. But now, I knew.
”
”
Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties: Stories)
“
My mind went back to my school-days and an old gentleman talking to the class about careers. He had said: “If you decide to become a veterinary surgeon you will never grow rich but you will have a life of endless interest and variety.” I laughed aloud in the darkness and as I got into the car I was still chuckling. That old chap certainly wasn’t kidding. Variety. That was it—variety.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful / All Things Wise and Wonderful: Three James Herriot Classics)
“
Usually they looked past me hopefully and some even went and peered into the car to see if the man they really wanted was hiding in there. And it was uphill work examining an animal when its owner was chafing in the background, wishing with all his heart that I was somebody else. But I had to admit they were fair. I got no effusive welcomes and when I started to tell them what I thought about the case they listened with open scepticism, but I found that if I got my jacket off and really worked at the job they began to thaw a little.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
How fathomless the mystery of the Unseen is! We cannot plumb its depths with our feeble senses - with eyes which cannot see the infinitely small or the infinitely great, nor anything too close or too distant, such as the beings who live on a star or the creatures which live in a drop of water... with ears that deceive us by converting vibrations of the air into tones that we can hear, for they are sprites which miraculously change movement into sound, a metamorphosis which gives birth to harmonies which turn the silent agitation of nature into song... with our sense of smell, which is poorer than any dog's... with our sense of taste, which is barely capable of detecting the age of a wine!
Ah! If we had other senses which would work other miracles for us, how many more things would we not discover around us!
”
”
Guy de Maupassant (Le Horla et autres contes fantastiques (Classiques hachette))
“
Now consider the tortoise and the eagle. The tortoise is a ground-living creature. It is impossible to live nearer the ground without being under it. Its horizons are a few inches away. It has about as good a turn of speed as you need to hunt down a lettuce. It has survived while the rest of evolution flowed past it by being, on the whole, no threat to anyone and too much trouble to eat. And then there is the eagle. A creature of the air and high places, whose horizons go all the way to the edge of the world. Eyesight keen enough to spot the rustle of some small and squeaky creature half a mile away. All power, all control. Lightning death on wings. Talons and claws enough to make a meal of anything smaller than it is and at least take a hurried snack out of anything bigger. And yet the eagle will sit for hours on the crag and survey the kingdoms of the world until it spots a distant movement and then it will focus, focus, focus on the small shell wobbling among the bushes down there on the desert. And it will leap… And a minute later the tortoise finds the world dropping away from it. And it sees the world for the first time, no longer one inch from the ground but five hundred feet above it, and it thinks: what a great friend I have in the eagle. And then the eagle lets go. And almost always the tortoise plunges to its death. Everyone knows why the tortoise does this. Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off. No one knows why the eagle does this. There’s good eating on a tortoise but, considering the effort involved, there’s much better eating on practically anything else. It’s simply the delight of eagles to torment tortoises. But of course, what the eagle does not realize is that it is participating in a very crude form of natural selection. One day a tortoise will learn how to fly.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Small Gods (Discworld, #13))
“
As I trailed dumbly up the next flight it seemed strange that we had never said goodbye. We didn’t know when, if ever, we would see each other again yet neither of us had said a word. I don’t know if Siegfried wanted to say anything but there was a lot try trying to burst from me.
I wanted to thank him for being a friend as well as a boss, for teaching me so much, for never letting me down. There were other things, too, but I never said them.
Come to think of it, I’ve never even thanked him for that fifty pounds…until now.
”
”
James Herriot (All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #3-4))
“
I had such a frightening experience last week,” Mrs. Pumphrey continued. “I was sure I would have to call you out. Poor little Tricki—he went completely crackerdog!” I mentally lined this up with flop-bott among the new canine diseases and asked for more information. “It was awful. I was terrified. The gardener was throwing rings for Tricki—you know he does this for half an hour every day.” I had witnessed this spectacle several times. Hodgkin, a dour, bent old Yorkshireman who looked as though he hated all dogs and Tricki in particular, had to go out on the lawn every day and throw little rubber rings over and over again. Tricki bounded after them and brought them back, barking madly till the process was repeated. The bitter lines on the old man’s face deepened as the game progressed. His lips moved continually, but it was impossible to hear what he was saying.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1-2))
“
Why Dream?
Life is a difficult assignment. We are fragile creatures, expected to function at high rates of speed, and asked to accomplish great and small things each day. These daily activities take enormous amounts of energy. Most things are out of our control. We are surrounded by danger, frustration, grief, and insanity as well as love, hope, ecstasy, and wonder. Being fully human is an exercise in humility, suffering, grace, and great humor. Things and people all around us die, get broken, or are lost. There is no safety or guarantees.
The way to accomplish the assignment of truly living is to engage fully, richly, and deeply in the living of your dreams. We are made to dream and to live those dreams.
”
”
Sarkis
“
Does God exist?
Unlike many people, this had not been the great inner debate of her life. Under the old Communist regime, the official line in schools had been that life ended with death, and she had gotten used to the idea. On the other hand, her parents’ generation and her grandparents’ generation still went to church, said prayers, and went on pilgrimages, and were utterly convinced that God listened to what they said.
At twenty-four, having experienced everything she could experience—and that was no small achievement—Veronika was almost certain that everything ended with death. That is why she had chosen suicide: freedom at last. Eternal oblivion.
In her heart of hearts, though, there was still a doubt: What if God did exist? Thousands of years of civilization had made of suicide a taboo, an affront to all religious codes: Man struggles to survive, not to succumb. The human race must procreate. Society needs workers. A couple has to have a reason to stay together, even when love has ceased to exist, and a country needs soldiers, politicians and artists.
If God exists, and I truly don’t believe he does, he will know that there are limits to human understanding. He was the one who created this confusion in which there is poverty, injustice, greed, and loneliness. He doubtless had the best of intentions, but the results have proved disastrous; if God exists, he will be generous with those creatures who chose to leave this Earth early, and he might even apologize for having made us spend time here.
To hell with taboos and superstitions. Her devout mother would say: “God knows the past, the present, and the future.” In that case, he had placed her in this world in the full knowledge that she would end up killing herself, and he would not be shocked by her actions.
Veronika began to feel a slight nausea, which became rapidly more intense.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (Veronika Decides to Die)
“
The dragonfly and damselfly reflect and work with the sun and light. The light changes throughout the day. The dragonfly and damselfly undergo their own transformations. If they have shown up, look for change to occur. Are you resisting change when you shouldn’t? Dragonflies remind us that we are light and can reflect the light in powerful ways if we choose to do so. “Let there be light” is the divine prompting to use the creative imagination as a force within your life. This is part of what dragonflies and damselflies teach us.
”
”
Ted Andrews (Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small)
“
I muttered into the receiver, “Right, Mr. Dixon, I’ll come straight away” and shuffled across the room, yawning and stretching, feeling the ache in my shoulders and arms. I looked down at the pile of clothing in the chair; I had taken them off, put them on again, taken them off already tonight and something in me rebelled at the thought of putting them on yet again. With a weary grunt I took my macintosh from the back of the door and donned it over my pyjamas, went downstairs to where my Wellingtons stood outside the dispensary door and stuck my feet into them. It was a warm night, what was the point of getting dressed up; I’d only have to strip off again at the farm.
”
”
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1))
“
Hence, Orlando and Sasha, as he called her for short, and because it was the name of a white Russian fox he had had as a boy—a creature soft as snow, but with teeth of steel, which bit him so savagely that his father had it killed—hence they had the river to themselves. Hot with skating and with love they would throw themselves down in some solitary reach, where the yellow osiers fringed the bank, and wrapped in a great fur cloak Orlando would take her in his arms, and know, for the first time, he murmured, the delights of love. Then, when the ecstasy was over and they lay lulled in a swoon on the ice, he would tell her of his other loves, and how, compared with her, they had been of wood, of sackcloth, and of cinders. And laughing at his vehemence, she would turn once more in his arms and give him, for love’s sake, one more embrace. And then they would marvel that the ice did not melt with their heat, and pity the poor old woman who had no such natural means of thawing it, but must hack at it with a chopper of cold steel. And then, wrapped in their sables, they would talk of everything under the sun; of sights and travels; of Moor and Pagan; of this man’s beard and that woman’s skin; of a rat that fed from her hand at table; of the arras that moved always in the hall at home; of a face; of a feather. Nothing was too small for such converse, nothing was too great.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Orlando)
“
O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light: yet you see how this world goes.
Ear; of Gloster, “I see it feelingly.”
Lear, “What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? - Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a begger?
Earl of Gloster, ‘Ay, sir.
Lear, “And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obey’d in office. - Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand! Why dost though lash that whore? Strip thine own back; Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind For which thou whipst her. The usurer hangs the cozener. Through tattere’d clothes small vices to appear; Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it. None does offend, none, - I say, none; I’ll able ‘em to seal the accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes; To see the things thou dost not. - Now, now, now, now: Pull off my boots: - harder, harder: - so.
Edgar (aside), “O, matter and impertinency mixt! Reason in madness!
”
”
William Shakespeare
“
But none of the feeling which the joys or misfortunes of a real person arouse in us can be awakened except through a mental picture of those joys or misfortunes; and the ingenuity of the first novelist lay in his understanding that, as the image was the one essential element in the complicated structure of our emotions, so that simplification of it which consisted in the suppression, pure and simple, of real people would be a decided improvement. A real person, profoundly as we may sympathise with him, is in a great measure perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, remains opaque, presents a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to lift. If some misfortune comes to him, it is only in one small section of the complete idea we have of him that we are capable of feeling any emotion; indeed it is only in one small section of the complete idea he has of himself that he is capable of feeling any emotion either. The novelist's happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque sections, impenetrable to the human soul, their equivalent in immaterial sections, things, that is, which one's soul can assimilate. After which it matters not that the actions, the feelings of this new order of creatures appear to us in the guise of truth, since we have made them our own, since it is in ourselves that they are happening.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1))
“
We have arrived at an interesting moment in the evolution of our species when a smart person in a first-world culture is pestered by two contradictory feelings: first that he is as special a creature as nature has yet produced
and second that he's not very special at all, just excited matter here for a while and off again into universal dark matter. This first feeling inflates him and makes him want to puff out his chest and preen a bit. This second feeling makes him want to crawl in a hole, act carelessly, or sit inert on the sofa. How unfortunate for a creature to be buffeted in such contradictory ways! These twin feelings lead a person to the following pair of conclusions: that while he is perhaps quite smart, he is nevertheless rather like a cockroach, trapped with a brain that really isn't big enough for his purposes, perhaps trapped in a corner of an academic discipline, a research
field, a literary genre, or in some other small place, trapped by his creatureliness, and trapped by life's very smallness. I would like to dub this the god-bug syndrome: the prevalent and perhaps epidemic feeling of greatness walking hand-in-hand with smallness that plagues so many people today.
”
”
Eric Maisel (Why Smart People Hurt: A Guide for the Bright, the Sensitive, and the Creative)
“
And, even now, as he paced the streets, and listlessly looked round on the gradually increasing bustle and preparation for the day, everything appeared to yield him some new occasion for despondency. Last night, the sacrifice of a young, affectionate, and beautiful creature, to such a wretch, and in such a cause, had seemed a thing too monstrous to succeed; and the warmer he grew, the more confident he felt that some interposition must save her from his clutches. But now, when he thought how regularly things went on, from day to day, in the same unvarying round; how youth and beauty died, and ugly griping age lived tottering on; how crafty avarice grew rich, and manly honest hearts were poor and sad; how few they were who tenanted the stately houses, and how many of those who lay in noisome pens, or rose each day and laid them down each night, and lived and died, father and son, mother and child, race upon race, and generation upon generation, without a home to shelter them or the energies of one single man directed to their aid; how, in seeking, not a luxurious and splendid life, but the bare means of a most wretched and inadequate subsistence, there were women and children in that one town, divided into classes, numbered and estimated as regularly as the noble families and folks of great degree, and reared from infancy to drive most criminal and dreadful trades; how ignorance was punished and never taught; how jail-doors gaped, and gallows loomed, for thousands urged towards them by circumstances darkly curtaining their very cradles' heads, and but for which they might have earned their honest bread and lived in peace; how many died in soul, and had no chance of life; how many who could scarcely go astray, be they vicious as they would, turned haughtily from the crushed and stricken wretch who could scarce do otherwise, and who would have been a greater wonder had he or she done well, than even they had they done ill; how much injustice, misery, and wrong, there was, and yet how the world rolled on, from year to year, alike careless and indifferent, and no man seeking to remedy or redress it; when he thought of all this, and selected from the mass the one slight case on which his thoughts were bent, he felt, indeed, that there was little ground for hope, and little reason why it should not form an atom in the huge aggregate of distress and sorrow, and add one small and unimportant unit to swell the great amount.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)
“
Okay.First things first. Three things you don't want me to know about you."
"What?" I gaped at him.
"You're the one who says we don't know each other.So let's cut to the chase."
Oh,but this was too easy:
1. I am wearing my oldest, ugliest underwear.
2.I think your girlfriend is evil and should be destroyed.
3.I am a lying, larcenous creature who talks to dead people and thinks she should be your girlfriend once the aforementioned one is out of the picture.
I figured that was just about everything. "I don't think so-"
"Doesn't have to be embarrassing or major," Alex interrupted me, "but it has to be something that costs a little to share." When I opened my mouth to object again, he pointed a long finger at the center of my chest. "You opened the box,Pandora.So sit."
There was a funny-shaped velour chair near my knees. I sat. The chair promptly molded itself to my butt. I assumed that meant it was expensive, and not dangerous. Alex flopped onto the bed,settling on his side with his elbow bent and his head propped on his hand.
"Can't you go first?" I asked.
"You opened the box..."
"Okay,okay. I'm thinking."
He gave me about thirty seconds. Then, "Time."
I took a breath. "I'm on full scholarship to Willing." One thing Truth or Dare has taught me is that you can't be too proud and still expect to get anything valuable out of the process.
"Next."
"I'm terrified of a lot things, including lightning, driving a stick shift, and swimming in the ocean."
His expression didn't change at all. He just took in my answers. "Last one."
"I am not telling you about my underwear," I muttered.
He laughed. "I am sorry to hear that. Not even the color?"
I wanted to scowl. I couldn't. "No.But I will tell you that I like anchovies on my pizza."
"That's supposed to be consolation for withholding lingeries info?"
"Not my concern.But you tell me-is it something you would broadcast around the lunchroom?"
"Probably not," he agreed.
"Didn't think so." I settled back more deeply into my chair. It didn't escape my notice that, yet again, I was feeling very relaxed around this boy. Yet again, it didn't make me especially happy. "Your turn."
I thought about my promise to Frankie. I quietly hoped Alex would tell me something to make me like him even a little less.
He was ready. "I cried so much during my first time at camp that my parents had to come get me four days early."
I never went to camp. It always seemed a little bit idyllic to me. "How old were you?"
"Six.Why?"
"Why?" I imagined a very small Alex in a Spider-Man shirt, cuddling the threadbare bunny now sitting on the shelf over his computer. I sighed. "Oh,no reason. Next."
"I hated Titanic, The Notebook, and Twilight."
"What did you think of Ten Things I Hate About You?"
"Hey," he snapped. "I didn't ask questions during your turn."
"No,you didn't," I agreed pleasantly. "Anser,please."
"Fine.I liked Ten Things. Satisfied?"
No,actually. "Alex," I said sadly, "either you are mind-bogglingly clueless about what I wouldn't want to know, or your next revelation is going to be that you have an unpleasant reaction to kryptonite."
He was looking at me like I'd spoken Swahili. "What are you talking about?"
Just call me Lois. I shook my head. "Never mind. Carry on."
"I have been known to dance in front of the mirror-" he cringed a little- "to 'Thriller.'"
And there it was. Alex now knew that I was a penniless coward with a penchant for stinky fish.I knew he was officially adorable.
He pushed himself up off his elbow and swung his legs around until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. "And on that humiliating note, I will now make you translate bathroom words into French." He picked up a sheaf of papers from the floor. "I have these worksheets. They're great for the irregular verbs...
”
”
Melissa Jensen (The Fine Art of Truth or Dare)