A.P. Herbert Quotes

Who eates the Kings Goose uoydes the feathers an hundred years after. [Who eats the king's goose voids the feathers a hundred years after.]

All things require skill but an appetite.

Wisedome hath one foot on Land, and another on Sea.

Play not for gain, but sport. Who plays for more Than he can lose with pleasure, stakes his heart; Perhaps his wife's too, and whom she hath bore.

Hee that strikes with his tongue, must ward with his head.

He is a great Necromancer, for he asks counsel counsell of the Dead (i.e. books).

We may be sure that out of the ruins of our capitalist civilization a new religion will emerge, just as Christianity emerged from the ruins of the Roman civilization.

If I'd been born in my grandfather's time, I'd have made my grandfather's mistakes. Theres no doubt of it. I just don't want to make my grandfather's mistakes today.

The past is no farther away than your pillow.

Madness in method, that's genius

Life is not for learning nor is life for working, but learning and working are for life.

Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent natural regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it.

He that is drunken * * * Is outlawed by himself; all kind of ill Did with his liquor slide into his veins.

To write a verse or two is all the praise That I can raise.

Doe what thou oughtest, and come what come can.

Of a little thing a little displeaseth.

To buy deare is not bounty.

The real universe is always one step beyond logic.

The fact of our salvation being not something, but Someone, produces quietness of spirit and an unshakable confidence.

Give a clown your finger, and he will take your hand.

To the counsel of fools a wooden bell.

The white light of truth, in traversing the many sided transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry.

In every Art it is good to have a master. [In every art it is good to have a master.]

A shippe and a woman are ever repairing.

If yee would know a knave, give him a staffe.

Words are such gross machinery, so primitive and ambiguous.

Many, affecting wit beyond their power, Have got to be a dear fool for an hour.

Marriage - as well as erotic friendships and sexual liaisons -between members of contrasting races and religions will take place with greater frequency, and will be more accepted than it is today.

Send not a Catt for Lard.

Every thing new is fine.

A City that parlies is half gotten. [A city that parleys is half gotten.]

Maybe I will write a memoir, perhaps I'll do some essays, or maybe I will write a mystery story.

We must get away from the traditional idea that the saints in Heaven have one eternal holiday; that they have nothing to occupy them save playing a harp and incessantly singing.

The tongue walkes where the teeth speede not.

That is gold which is worth gold.

Beate the dog before the Lyon.

There exists no separation between gods and men; one blends softly casual into the other.

A sleepy master makes his servant a Lowt.

A killer with the manners of a rabbit - this is the most dangerous kind.

I am not the river I am the net.

Humans are almost always lonely.

the meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture - it begins in the dignity with which we treat the dead

At the very dawn of history, the care of the sick was actually superior to what the great majority of mankind receive today when ill.

One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.

She looked at patches of blackness. Black is a blind remembering, she thought.

The fatt man knoweth not, what the leane thinketh.

Drought never brought dearth.

Often I must speak otherwise than I think. This is called diplomacy.

The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a thing of ultimate beauty. Leto II

... motivating people, forcing them to your will, gives you a cynical attitude toward humanity. It degrades everything it touches.