Quotes from Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Richard Bach ·  95 pages

Rating: (160.7K votes)


“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way".”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Jonathan sighed. The price of being misunderstood, he thought. They call you devil or they call you god.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull



“He was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip," Jonathan would say, other times, "is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect. -And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“The gull sees farthest who flies highest”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull



“Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull's life is so short, and with those gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Heaven is not a place, and it's not a time. Heaven is being perfect.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“He spoke of very simple things- that it is right for a gull to fly, that freedom is the very nature of his being, that whatever stands against that freedom must be set aside, be it ritual or superstition or limitation in any form.

"Set aside," came a voice from the multitude, "even if it be the Law of the Flock?"

"The only true law is that which leads to freedom," Jonathan said. "There is no other.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Why, Jon, why?" his mother asked. "Why is it so hard to be like the rest of the flock, Jon? Why can't you leave low flying to the pelicans, the alhatross? Why don't you eat? Son, you're bone and feathers!" "I don't mind being bone and feathers mom. I just want to know what I can do in the air and what I can't, that's all. I just want to know.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“To fly as fast as thought, to anywhere that is, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull



“One school is finished, and the time has come for another to begin.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand!”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“You don't love hatred and evil, of course. You have to practice and see the real gull, the good in every one of them, and to help them see it in themselves. That's what I mean by love.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Sully,for shame!" Jonathan said in reproach, " and don't be foolish! What are we trying to practice everyday? If our friendship depends on things like space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“For most gulls it was not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull



“چرا دشوارترین کار در جهان این است که پرنده ای را متقاعد کنی، آزاد است؟”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“A moment later Jonathan’s body wavered in the air, shimmering, and began to go transparent. “Don’t let them spread silly rumors about me, or make me a god. O.K., Fletch? I’m a seagull. I like to fly, maybe…”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there's reason to live!
We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can learn to be free! we can learn to fly!”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight - how to get from shore to food and back again”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull



“Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“¡Si nuestra amistad depende de cosas como el espacio y el tiempo, entonces, cuando por fin superemos el espacio y el tiempo, habremos destruido nuestra propia hermandad! Pero supera el espacio, y nos quedará sólo un Aquí. Supera el tiempo, y nos quedará sólo un Ahora. Y entre el Aquí y el Ahora, ¿no crees que podremos volver a vernos un par de veces?”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


“Le paradis, c'est simplement d'être soi-même parfait.”
― Richard Bach, quote from Jonathan Livingston Seagull


About the author

Richard Bach
Born place: in Oak Park, IL, The United States
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