The Worst Journey in the World 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

“I have seen Fuji, the most dainty and graceful of all mountains; and also Kinchinjunga: only Michael Angelo among men could have conceived such grandeur. But give me Erebus for my friend. Whoever made Erebus knew all the charm of horizontal lines, and the lines of Erebus are for the most part nearer the horizontal then the vertical. And so he is the most restful mountain in the world, and I was glad when I knew that our hut would lie at his feet. And always there floated from his crater the lazy banner of his cloud of steam.”
― Caroline Alexander, The Worst Journey in the World

“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 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

“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

“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

“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

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

“the luxuries of civilization satisfy only those wants which they themselves create.”
― 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“parasites,”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctica, 1910-1913

“and then "How's the enemy, Titus?" to Oates, who would hopefully reply that it was, say, seven o'clock.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World (Illustrated Edition): Memoirs: The 1910–1913 British Antarctic Expedition

“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

“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

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

“We traveled for science: those three small embryos from Cape Crozier, that weight of fossils from Barkley Island, and that mass of material less spectacular but gathered just as carefully hour by hour, in wind and drift, darkness and cold, was striven for in order that the world may have a little more knowledge, that it may build on what it knows instead of on what it thinks.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World

“Last entry. "For God's sake, look after our people.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“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

“Then some prayers from the Burial Service: and there with the floor-cloth under them and the tent above we buried them in their sleeping-bags—and surely their work has not been in vain.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“If you want a good polar traveller get a man without too much muscle, with good physical tone, and let his mind be on wires—of steel. And if you can't get both, sacrifice physique and bank on will.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“There is nothing so irritating as the man who is always coming in and informing all and sundry that he has repaired his sledge, or built a wall, or filled the cooker, or mended his socks.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913

“Yes! comfortable, warm reader. Men do not fear death, they fear the pain of dying.”
― Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913