A.P. Herbert Quotes

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: Try to please everybody.

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation.

The best mirror is an old friend.

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.

The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future.

The society exists for the benefit of its members; not its members for the benefit of the society.

Just as typography is human speech translated into what can be read, so photography is the translation of reality into a readable image.

A great dowry is a bed full of brables. [A great dowry is a bed full of brambles.]

No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

A city is a large community where people are lonesome together.

The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.

My work seen in its totality is a statement about the integration of the contemporary artist into an industrial society.

Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.

Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.

The truth of art lies in its power to break the monopoly of established reality to define what is real.

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

All Socialism involves slavery.

There are few things more dangerous than a mixture of power, arrogance and incompetence.

Under the rule of a repressive whole, liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination.

Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.

The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice.

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.

The honey is sweet, but the Bee stings.

You cannot make a windmill go with a pair of bellows.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

The picture is the imitation and converted reality of the goods, in short, an indirect substitute for reality.

Art cannot change the world, but it can contribute to changing the consciousness and drives of the men and women who could change the world.

A good mother is worth hundreds of schoolmasters.

My country owes me nothing. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor.

Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men.

The spontaneous reproduction of superimposed needs by the individual does not establish autonomy; it only testifies to the efficacy of the control.

The eyes have one language everywhere.

Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.

No time to grieve for roses when the forests are burning.

We live in a time of the greatest precision and of maximum contrasts: photomontage offers us a means to express this. It shows ideas: photography shows us objects.

Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

Help thyself, and God will help thee.

A gentle heart is tied with an easy thread.

If a donkey bray at you, don't bray at him.

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.

Thou who hast given so much to me, give me one more thing... a grateful heart!

The Superego, in censoring the unconscious and in implanting conscience, also censors the censor.

This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.

Bells call others, but themselves enter not into the Church.

One finds limits by pushing them.

The principle of equity first came into evidence in Roman jurisprudence and was derived by analogy from the physical meaning of the word.

Most people are afraid of freedom. They are conditioned to be afraid of it.

Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.

In oratory affectation must be avoided; it being better for a man by a native and clear eloquence to express himself than by those words which may smell either of the lamp or inkhorn.