Robert Conway Quotes in Lost Horizon (1937)

High Lama: It is the entire meaning and purpose of Shangri-La. It came to me in a vision, long, long ago. I saw all the nations strengthening, not in wisdom, but in the vulgar passions and the will to destroy. I saw the machine power multiplying, until a single weaponed man might match a whole army. I foresaw a time when man, exalting in the technique of murder, would rage so hotly over the world, that every book, every treasure, would be doomed to destruction. This vision was so vivid and so moving, that I determined to gather together all things of beauty and of culture that I could, and preserve them here, against the doom toward which the world is rushing. Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! What unintelligent leadership! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity, crashing headlong against each other, propelled by an orgy of greed and brutality. A time must come my friend, when this orgy will spend itself. When brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword. Against that time, is why I avoided death, and am here. And why you were brought here. For when that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life. And it is our hope that they may find it here. For here, we shall be with their books and their music, and a way of life based on one simple rule: Be Kind! When that day comes, it is our hope that the brotherly love of Shangri-La will spread throughout the world. Yes, my son; When the strong have devoured each other, the Christian ethic may at last be fulfilled and the meek shall inherit the earth.

Robert Conway: I understand you father.

Robert Conway: George, didn't you ever want to know what's on the other side of the mountain?

Robert Conway: I think I'm going to like it here.

[a content Conway concluding a romantic interlude with Sondra]

Robert Conway: You know, when we were on that plane, I was fascinated by the way the shadow followed us. That silly shadow! Racing along over mountains and valleys, covering ten times the distance of the plane, and yet always there to greet us... with outstretched arms when we landed. And I've been thinking that, somehow, you're that plane, and I'm that silly shadow. That all my life I've been rushing up and down hills, leaping rivers, crashing over obstacles, never dreaming that one day that beautiful thing in flight would land on this earth and into my arms.

Chang: It is very common here to live to a very ripe old age. Climate, diet - the mountain water you might say. But we like to believe it's the absence of struggle in the way we live. In your countries, on the other hand, how often do you hear the expression, "He worried himself to death," or "This thing or that killed him"?

Robert Conway: Oh, very often.

Chang: And very true. Your lives are, as a rule, shorter. Not so much by natural death, as by indirect suicide.

Robert Conway: Mr. Chang, if you don't mind, I think I'll go on being amazed - in moderation go course...

Robert Conway: Did you make that report out yet?

George Conway: Yes, Bob.

Robert Conway: Did you say we saved ninety white people?

George Conway: Yes.

Robert Conway: Good. Hooray for us. Ha-ha. Did you say that we left ten thousand natives down there to be annihilated? No. No, you wouldn't say that.

[Sarcastically]

Robert Conway: They don't count.

Robert Conway: You have no disputes over women?

Chang: Only very rarely. You see, it would not be considered good manners to take a woman that another man wanted.

Robert Conway: Supposed somebody wanted her so badly that he didn't give a hang if it was good manners or not?

Chang: Well, in that event, it would be good manners on the part of the other man to let him have her.