James Herriot Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Inspiring, Loyalty, Gratitude

  James Herriot (2012). “All Creatures Great and Small: The classic memoirs of a Yorkshire country vet”, p.232, Pan Macmillan

  221 Copy quote

• Animals are unpredictable things, and so our 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

  Animal, Unpredictable Things, Long

  James Herriot (2012). “If Only They Could Talk: The classic memoirs of a 1930s vet”, p.34, Pan Macmillan

  81 Copy quote

• 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

  Rich, Endless, Interest

  James Herriot (2012). “If Only They Could Talk: The classic memoirs of a 1930s vet”, p.103, Pan Macmillan

  86 Copy quote

• If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans. I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs ...[they] are an obligation put on us, a responsibility we have no right to neglect, nor to violate by cruelty.

  James Herriot

  Loyalty, Gratitude, Children

  73 Copy quote

• I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs.

  James Herriot

  Children, Animal, People

  94 Copy quote

• No animal is a better judge of comfort than a cat.

  James Herriot

  Cat, Animal, Judging

  James Herriot (2012). “James Herriot's Dog Stories”, p.79, Pan Macmillan

  57 Copy quote

• I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.

  James Herriot

  Inspirational, Motivational, Cat

  61 Copy quote

• I seem to have spent a good part of my life - probably too much – in just standing and staring.

  James Herriot

  Too Much, Staring, Standing

  James Herriot (2012). “All Creatures Great and Small: The classic memoirs of a Yorkshire country vet”, p.187, Pan Macmillan

  20 Copy quote

• And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly

  James Herriot

  Silence, Emptiness, Moors

  James Herriot (2012). “All Creatures Great and Small: The classic memoirs of a Yorkshire country vet”, p.187, Pan Macmillan

  32 Copy quote

• I wish people would realize that animals are totally dependent on us, helpless, like children, a trust that is put upon us.

  James Herriot

  Children, Animal, People

  43 Copy quote

• A farmer once told me one of the greatest luxuries of his life was to wake up early only to go back to sleep again.

  James Herriot

  Sleep, Luxury, Up Early

  26 Copy quote

• Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.

  James Herriot

  Cat, Pet, Comfort

  James Herriot (2012). “Vet in Harness”, p.82, Pan Macmillan

  87 Copy quote

• Dogs like to obey. It gives them security.

  James Herriot

  Dog, Giving, Training

  James Herriot (2012). “The Lord God Made Them All: The classic memoirs of a Yorkshire country vet”, p.246, Pan Macmillan

  35 Copy quote

• I could do terrible things to people who dump unwanted animals by the roadside.

  James Herriot

  Animal, People, Dump

  29 Copy quote

• I think it was the beginning of Mrs. Bond's unquestioning faith in me when she saw me quickly enveloping the cat till all you could see of him was a small black and white head protruding from an immovable cocoon of cloth. He and i were now facing each other, more or less eyeball to eyeball, and George couldn't do a thing about it. As i say, I rather pride myself on this little expertise, and even today my veterinary colleagues have been known to remark, "Old Herriot may be limited in many respects, but by God he can wrap a cat.

  James Herriot

  Cat, Pride, Black And White

  James Herriot (2011). “Three James Herriot Classics: All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, and All Things Wise and Wonderful”, p.877, Open Road Media

  34 Copy quote

• 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

  Morning, Sunshine, Hanging On

  James Herriot (2011). “All Creatures Great and Small”, p.210, Open Road Media

  25 Copy quote

• I love writing about my job because I loved it, and it was a particularly interesting one when I was a young man. It was like holidays with pay to me.

  James Herriot

  Jobs, Writing, Holiday

  "But It Did Happen To A Vet" by Jonathan Margolis, "Time Magazine", December 12, 2002.

  31 Copy quote

• If I had been a little dog I'd have gone leaping and gambolling around the room wagging my tail furiously.

  James Herriot

  Dog, Tails, Gone

  James Herriot (2012). “Let Sleeping Vets Lie”, p.104, Pan Macmillan

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  Morning, Too Much, Staring

  James Herriot (2012). “All Creatures Great and Small: The classic memoirs of a Yorkshire country vet”, p.187, Pan Macmillan

  30 Copy quote

• And there was that letter from the Bramleys—that really made me feel good. You don’t find people like the Bramleys now; radio, television and the motorcar have carried the outside world into the most isolated places so that the simple people you used to meet on the lonely farms are rapidly becoming like people anywhere else. There are still a few left, of course—old folk who cling to the ways of their fathers and when I come across any of them I like to make some excuse to sit down and talk with them and listen to the old Yorkshire words and expressions which have almost disappeared.

  James Herriot

  Lonely, Father, Simple

  James Herriot (2012). “All Creatures Great and Small: The classic memoirs of a Yorkshire country vet”, p.313, Pan Macmillan

  22 Copy quote

• I was helped by having a verbatim memory of what happened years ago, even if I can't remember what happened a couple of days ago.

  James Herriot

  Couple, Memories, Years

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Dog, Years, Tails

  James Herriot (2012). “Let Sleeping Vets Lie”, p.104, Pan Macmillan

  22 Copy quote

• I am never at my best in the early morning, especially a cold morning in the Yorkshire spring with a piercing March wind sweeping down from the fells, finding its way inside my clothing, nipping at my nose and ears.

  James Herriot

  Morning, Spring, Wind

  James Herriot (2011). “Every Living Thing”, p.7, Open Road Media

  53 Copy quote

• I think it was the fact that I liked it so much that made the writing just come out of me automatically.

  James Herriot

  Writing, Thinking, Facts

  25 Copy quote

• There was no last animal I treated. When young farm lads started to help me over the gate into a field or a pigpen, to make sure the old fellow wouldn't fall, I started to consider retiring.

  James Herriot

  Retirement, Fall, Animal

  "But It Did Happen To A Vet" by Jonathan Margolis, Time Magazine, December 12, 2002.

  7 Copy quote

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