Apsley Cherry-Garrard > Quotes

“And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on Earth has it worse than an Emperor penguin.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“And if the worst, or best, happens, and Death comes for you in the snow, he comes disguised as Sleep, and you greet him rather as a welcome friend than a gruesome foe.”
― Aspley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“Accept yourself: be yourself. That seems a good rule. But which self? Even the simplest of us are complicated enough.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard

“It is really not desirable for men who do not believe that knowledge is of value for its own sake to take up this kind of life. The question constantly put to us in civilization was and still is: "What is the use? Is there gold? or Is there coal?" The commercial spirit of the present day can see no good in pure science: the English manufacturer is not interested in research which will not give him a financial return within one year: the city man sees in it only so much energy wasted on unproductive work: truly they are bound to the wheel of conventional life.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“I might have speculated on my chances of going to Heaven; but candidly I did not care. I could not have wept if I had tried. I had no wish to review the evils of my past. But the past did seem to have been a bit wasted. The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions: the road to Heaven is paved with lost opportunities.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“I am glad The Worst Journey is coming out in Penguins: after all it is largely about penguins.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“Those Hut Point days, would prove some of the happiest of my life. Just enough to eat and keep warm, no more - no frills or trimmings: there is many a worse and more elaborate life...the luxuries of civilisation satisfy only those wants which they themselves create.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard

“We are a nation of shop keepers. ”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard

“committing suicide, both for your own sake and that of your companions. Both sexually and socially the polar explorer must make up his mind to be starved. To what extent can hard work, or what may be called dramatic imagination, provide a substitute? Compare our thoughts on the march; our food dreams at night; the primitive way in which the loss of a crumb of biscuit may give a lasting sense of grievance. Night after night I bought big buns and chocolate at a stall on the island platform at Hatfield station, but always woke before I got a mouthful to my lips; some companions who were not so highly strung were more fortunate, and ate their phantom meals. And the darkness, accompanied it may be almost continually by howling blizzards which prevent you seeing your hand before your face. Life in such surroundings is both mentally and physically cramped; open-air exercise is restricted and in blizzards quite impossible, and you realize how much you lose by your inability to see the world about you when you are out-of-doors. I am told that when confronted by a lunatic or one who under the influence of some great grief or shock contemplates suicide, you should take that man out-of-doors and walk him about: Nature will do the rest. To normal people like ourselves living under abnormal circumstances Nature could do much to lift our thoughts out of the rut of everyday affairs, but she loses much of her healing power when she cannot be seen, but only felt, and when that feeling is intensely uncomfortable. Somehow in judging polar life you must discount compulsory endurance; and find out what a man can shirk, remembering always that it is a sledging life which”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions: the road to Heaven is paved with lost opportunities.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“I for one, had come to that point of suffering at which I did not really care if only I could die without much pain. They talk of the heroism of the dying - the little they know - it would be so easy to die, a dose of morphia, a friendly crevasse, and blissful sleep. The trouble is to go on...”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard

“the luxuries of civilization satisfy only those wants which they themselves create.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“A war is like the Antarctic in one respect. There is no getting out of it with honour as long as you can put one foot before the other.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard

“Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“For an hour or so we were furiously angry, and were possessed with an insane sense that we must go straight to the Bay of Whales and have it out with Amundsen and his men in some undefined fashion or other there and then. Such a mood could not and did not bear a moment's reflection; but it was natural enough. We had just paid the first instalment of the heart-breaking labour of making a path to the Pole; and we felt, however unreasonably, that we had earned the first right of way.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“For a joint scientific and geographical piece of organization, give me Scott; for a Winter Journey, Wilson; for a dash to the Pole and nothing else, Amundsen: and if I am in the devil of a hole and want to get out of it, give me Shackleton every time.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“Generally the risks were taken, for, on the whole, it is better to be a little over-bold than a little over-cautious, while always there was a something inside urging you to do it just because there was a certain risk, and you hardly liked not to do it. It is so easy to be afraid of being afraid!”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“The mutual conquest of difficulties is the cement of friendship, as it is the only lasting cement of matrimony.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“From the masthead one can see a few patches of open water in different directions, but the main outlook is the same scene of desolate hummocky pack.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“Men do not fear death, they fear the pain of dying.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“And at the end, when Scott himself lay dying, he wrote to Mrs. Wilson: "I can do no more to comfort you, than to tell you that he died as he lived, a brave, true man—the best of comrades and staunchest of friends.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“Unfortunately the dogs misunderstood their orders and, instead of piloting us, dashed off on their own. We saw them like specks in the distance in the direction of the old seal crack.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“When I went South I never meant to write a book: I rather despised those who did so as being of an inferior brand to those who did things and said nothing about them. But that they say nothing is too often due to the fact that they have nothing to say, or are too idle or too busy to learn how to say it. Every one who has been through such an extraordinary experience has much to say, and ought to say it if he has any faculty that way.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“The mind of a horse is a very limited concern, relying almost entirely upon memory. He rivals our politicians in that he has little real intellect.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“And now the reader will ask what became of the three penguins' eggs for which three human lives had been risked three hundred times a day, and three human frames strained to the utmost extremity of human endurance.

Let us leave the Antarctic for a moment and conceive ourselves in the year 1913 in the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. I had written to say that I would bring the eggs at this time. Present, myself, C.-G., the sole survivor of the three, with First or Doorstep Custodian of the Sacred Eggs. I did not take a verbatim report of his welcome; but the spirit of it may be dramatized as follows:

First Custodian. Who are you? What do you want? This ain't an egg-shop. What call have you to come meddling with our eggs? Do you want me to put the police on to you? Is it the crocodile's egg you're after? I don't know nothing about 'no eggs. You'd best speak to Mr. Brown: it's him that varnishes the eggs.

I resort to Mr. Brown, who ushers me into the presence of the Chief Custodian, a man of scientific aspect, with two manners: one, affably courteous, for a Person of Importance (I guess a Naturalist Rothschild at least) with whom he is conversing, and the other, extraordinarily offensive even for an official man of science, for myself.

I announce myself with becoming modesty as the bearer of the penguins' eggs, and proffer them. The Chief Custodian takes them into custody without a word of thanks, and turns to the Person of Importance to discuss them. I wait. The temperature of my blood rises. The conversation proceeds for what seems to me a considerable period. Suddenly the Chief Custodian notices my presence and seems to resent it.

Chief Custodian. You needn't wait.

Heroic Explorer. I should like to have a receipt for the eggs, if you please.

Chief Custodian. It is not necessary: it is all right. You needn't wait.

Heroic Explorer. I should like to have a receipt.

But by this time the Chief Custodian's attention is again devoted wholly to the Person of Importance. Feeling that to persist in overhearing their conversation would be an indelicacy, the Heroic Explorer politely leaves the room, and establishes himself on a chair in a gloomy passage outside, where he wiles away the time by rehearsing in his imagination how he will tell off the Chief Custodian when the Person of Importance retires. But this the Person of Importance shows no sign of doing, and the Explorer's thoughts and intentions become darker and darker. As the day wears on, minor officials, passing to and from the Presence, look at him doubtfully and ask his business. The reply is always the same, "I am waiting for a receipt for some penguins' eggs." At last it becomes clear from the Explorer's expression that what he is really waiting for is not to take a receipt but to commit murder. Presumably this is reported to the destined victim: at all events the receipt finally comes; and the Explorer goes his way with it, feeling that he has behaved like a perfect gentleman, but so very dissatisfied with that vapid consolation that for hours he continues his imaginary rehearsals of what he would have liked to have done to that Custodian (mostly with his boots) by way of teaching him manners.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World