At evening when the lamp is lit,
The tired Human People sit
And doze, or turn with solemn looks
The speckled pages of their books.
Then I, the Dangerous Kitten, prowl
And in the Shadows softly growl,
And roam about the farthest floor
Where Kitten never trod before.
And, crouching in the jungle damp,
I watch the Human Hunter’s camp,
Ready to spring with fearful roar
As soon as I shall hear them snore.
And then with stealthy tread I crawl
Into the dark and trackless hall,
Where 'neath the Hat-tree's shadows deep
Umbrellas fold their wings and sleep.
A cuckoo calls — and to their dens
The People climb like frightened hens,
And I'm alone — and no one cares
In Darkest Africa — downstairs.
Oliver Herford
Related
People are not an interruption of our business. People are our business.
A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.
It is hard to look up to a leader who keeps his ear to the ground.
The most wasted day of all is that in which we have not laughed.
The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in men. Ordinary people see no diff...
The intelligence is proved not by ease of learning, but by understanding what we learn.
Communication is something so simple and difficult that we can never put it in simple words.
Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads
Let love through good deeds show.
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
In everyone's heart stirs a great homesickness.
That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.
Our wisdom comes usually from our experience, and our experience comes largely from our experience.
One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first ti...
To reprove small faults within due vehemence, is as absurd as if a man should take a great hammer to...
Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light.
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of...
Some families can trace their ancestors back three hundred years, but can't tell you where their chi...
A recent survey was said to prove that the people we Americans most admire are our politicians and d...
If a man defrauds you one time, he is a rascal; if he does it twice, you are a fool.
Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog.
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admired when it ...
Freedom also includes the right to mismanage your own affairs.
Let your friends be the friends of your deliberate choice.
The man who has strong opinions and always says what he thinks is courageous - and friendless.
Friendship is love with understanding.
So few people think. When we find one who really does, we call him a genius
Your life can't go according to plan if you have no plan.
Practicing the Golden Rule is not a sacrifice; it is an investment.
Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue.
An expert gossiper knows how much to leave out of a conversation
To live so that you would not be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip, is to have li...
Gossip is sometimes referred to as halitosis of the mind
If you would attain greatness, think no little thoughts.
We are born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy.
People are changed, not by coercion or intimidation, but by example.
Children are natural mimics; they act like their parents in spite of every effort to teach them good...
The guilty catch themselves.
Good habits are formed; bad habits we fall into.
If happiness could be brought, few of us could pay the price.
Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.
Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
Hatred is a boomerang which is sure to hit you harder than the one at whom you throw it.
Hate pollutes the mind.
If we miraculously became the people we hate, how lovable we would find ourselves.
To feel "fit as a fiddle" you must tone down your middle.
Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it.
A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, "And whom did you consult before coming t...
"Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you."
It is impossible to make wisdom hereditary.
Honesty is a question of right or wrong, not a matter of policy.
It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it.
It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside.
Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the t...
Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for ...
Humor - the perfect relationship of the parts to the whole.
Our five senses are incomplete without the sixth - a sense of humor.
"What made the deepest impression upon you?" inquired a friend one day of Lincoln, "when you stood i...
It isn't easy for an idea to squeeze itself into a head filled with prejudice.
Too many people run out of ideas long before they run out of words.
Imagination is the pontoon bridge making way for the timid feet of reason.
Practical observation commonly consists of collecting a few facts and loading them with guesses.
Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and u...
Having supplied them with names, omnipotence, justice, knowledge, Providence, - what are they?
A good laugh is sunshine in a house.
When you laugh, be sure to laugh at what people do and not at what people are.
One look around us ought to show that all our arbitrary measures and bounds have been clamped on us ...
No punishment of the unrighteous has ever been too severe in the eyes of the righteous.
Why keep on enacting laws when we already have more than we can break.
The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-re...
Advice is the only commodity on the market where the supply always exceeds the demand.
Successful men follow the same advice they prescribe for others.
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea
Old age may seem a long way off. But on the day it doesn't, it will be too late to do anything about...
Age withers only the outside.
Where ambition ends happiness begins.
The best answer to answer to anger is silence.
The size of a man is measured by the size of the thing that makes him angry.
A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about.
People who know the least always argue the most.
If you look for the positive things in life; you will find them.
What we are doing at the moment is more that just one thing added to the rest; it is a memoir.
Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes
The human mind must believe in something, so why not let it believe what it does believe.
He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance
It is better to live richly than to die rich.
On his examination paper a boy wrote, "A natural death is where you die by yourself without a doctor...
Many things are worse than defeat,and compromise with evil is one of them.
Desire for security keeps littleness little and threatens the great with smallness.
We cannot be too earnest, too persistent, too determined, about living superior to the herd-instinct...
A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it.
Shortchange your education now and you may be short of change the rest of your life.
Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them
Catch your people doing something right and let them know you appreciate it.
Create the kind of climate in your organization where personal growth is expected, recognized and re...
Enthusiasm is very good lubrication for the mind.
Enthusiasm is that kindling spark which marks the difference between the leaders in every activity a...
There are many roads to hate, but envy is the shortest of them all.
The only person worth envying is he person who doesn't envy.
More Oliver Herford
A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, bu...
OLIVER HERFORD Age, like distance lends a double charm.
OLIVER HERFORD Darling: the popular form of address used in speaking to a member of the opposite sex whose name you...
OLIVER HERFORD There is always room at the top - after the investigation.
OLIVER HERFORD The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scotts as a joke, but the Scotts haven't seen the joke yet.
OLIVER HERFORD Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings.
OLIVER HERFORD When I go abroad I always sail from Boston because it is such a pleasant place to get away from.
OLIVER HERFORD A man is known by the silence he keeps.
OLIVER HERFORD What is my loftiest ambition? I've always wanted to throw an egg at an electric fan.
OLIVER HERFORD Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure.
OLIVER HERFORD Only the young die good.
OLIVER HERFORD Many are called but few get up.
OLIVER HERFORD A rolling stone gathers no moss, but it gains a certain polish.
OLIVER HERFORD If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.
OLIVER HERFORD This book fills a much-needed gap.
OLIVER HERFORD Diplomacy: lying in state.
OLIVER HERFORD There is no time like the pleasant.
OLIVER HERFORD Cat: A pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings.
OLIVER HERFORD The bubble winked at me, and said,
"You'll miss me brother, when you're dead."
OLIVER HERFORD A hair in the head is worth two in the brush.
OLIVER HERFORD A woman's mind is cleaner than a man s: She changes it more often.
OLIVER HERFORD Modesty; the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.
OLIVER HERFORD Tact is to lie about others as you would have them lie about you.
OLIVER HERFORD ... one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.
OLIVER HERFORD Tact: to lie about others as you would have them lie about you.
OLIVER HERFORD Children, behold the Chimpanzee;
He sits on the ancestral tree
From which we sprang in ages go...
OLIVER HERFORD A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's: She changes it more often.
OLIVER HERFORD Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.
OLIVER HERFORD Alas! my child, where is the Pen
That can do justice to the Hen?
Like Royalty, she goes her w...
OLIVER HERFORD Why and Wherefore set out one day,
To hunt for a wild Negation.
They agreed to meet at a cool ...
OLIVER HERFORD Here's to old Adam's crystal ale,
Clear sparkling and divine,
Fair H2O, long may you flow,
...
OLIVER HERFORD The bubble winked at me and said,'You'll miss me brother, when you're dead'.
OLIVER HERFORD When I go abroad I always sail from Boston because it is such a pleasant place to get away from
OLIVER HERFORD The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scotts as a joke, but the Scotts haven't seen the joke yet.
OLIVER HERFORD What is my loftiest ambition? I've always wanted to throw an egg at an electric fan.
OLIVER HERFORD Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings
OLIVER HERFORD My wife has a whim of iron
OLIVER HERFORD I heard a bird sing in the dark of December. A magical thing. And sweet to remember. We are nearer t...
OLIVER HERFORD Modesty is the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.
OLIVER HERFORD I sometimes think the Pussy-Willows grey
Are Angel Kittens who have lost their way,
And ev...
OLIVER HERFORD When I grow up I mean to be
A Lion large and fierce to see.
I'll mew so loud that Cook in ...
OLIVER HERFORD I don't think any responsible performer would go on stage high. If he convinced himself he is better...
OLIVER I don't try to analyze my style now or I might lose it. Right now it's automatic and I don't want to...
OLIVER I think some entertainers have been very irresponsible in their part in making drug use a fad among ...
OLIVER I wouldn't say I'm happy, but I look at things in a soft way. I try to convey more personal interact...
OLIVER My job is to entertain people by playing my music well. You shouldn't really be upset because people...
OLIVER I like working alone. I feel freer, less constrained. I know what I have to do and I try to do it. T...
OLIVER My family is from Liverpool, so I have some of those vowel sounds, I've got the slack tone of so...
JOHN OLIVER I challenge you, to go to any school and open 50 lunchboxes, and I guarantee you there will be one o...
JAMIE OLIVER If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self -...
OLIVER SACKS The moment I accept that there's an artistic, redeeming quality in puns, I have a horrible feeli...
JOHN OLIVER I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.
JOHN OLIVER I've met people who will go to a movie that I can't stand and they say that they saw that mo...
OLIVER STONE I think that many people in history who had power were bumped off because they had power.
OLIVER STONE You do the best job you can. You take it step by step. It's hard enough to make a movie. If it w...
OLIVER STONE In any film there's always a historical implication.
OLIVER STONE I do believe that movies are subject to a million interpretations.
OLIVER STONE But in answer to your question about the conspiracy angle, I think that any historian worth his salt...
OLIVER STONE You're not a historian, but most historians will tell you that they make very discrete judgment ...
OLIVER STONE It's interesting that when economic times were the hardest, that's when many people embraced...
OLIVER STONE I never put out a history, I put out a dramatic history.
OLIVER STONE I am not trying to be a historian and a dramatist; I'm a dramatist, a dramatic historian, or one...
OLIVER STONE But I suppose film is distinctive because of its nature, of its being able to cut through time with ...
OLIVER STONE A woman can be very beautiful and an ideal model and she will photograph incredibly well, but she...
OLIVER STONE Anybody who's been through a divorce will tell you that at one point. they've thought murder...
OLIVER STONE I have the right to interpretation as a dramatist. I research. It's my responsibility to find th...
OLIVER STONE I've been to war, and it's not easy to kill. It's bloody and messy and totally horrifyin...
OLIVER STONE When you look at a movie, you look at a director's thought process.
OLIVER STONE Fear may very well be a caveman fear of the predator, of the giant lizard chasing them - maybe that&...
OLIVER STONE If anything, if you can get somebody interested in something and get them excited, that's great....
OLIVER STONE I'm terrible at horror movies, by the way. I get scared so easily.
OLIVER STONE I will come out with my interpretation. If I'm wrong, fine. It will become part of the debris of...
OLIVER STONE There's an electrical thing about movies.
OLIVER STONE I would vote for the man who's lived life, who's done different occupations, who's been ...
OLIVER STONE I think experience will teach you a combination of liberalism and conservatism. We have to be progre...
OLIVER STONE I study history in order to give an interpretation.
OLIVER STONE In general, people are afraid to acknowledge hallucinations because they immediately see them as a s...
OLIVER SACKS I feel I should be trying to complete my life, whatever 'completing a life' means.
OLIVER SACKS I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over.
OLIVER SACKS Elements and birthdays have been intertwined for me since boyhood, when I learned about atomic numbe...
OLIVER SACKS I was always the youngest boy in my class at high school. I have retained this feeling of being the ...
OLIVER SACKS I think hallucinations need to be discussed. There are all sorts of hallucinations, and then many so...
OLIVER SACKS At the New York Athletic Club they serve amazing food. People go there, get healthy, and then eat th...
OLIVER REED If the money's right, I'll do a film.
OLIVER REED You get so weak from eating pears that you fall down, and then they come and take you away on a stre...
OLIVER REED I don't like doing most things unless I can do them quite well.
OLIVER REED I'm really a pacifist.
OLIVER REED Awe and respect are two different things.
OLIVER REED I'm not as thrilled with myself as I used to be.
OLIVER REED What's the point of staying sober?
OLIVER REED Raquel Welch is someone I can also live without. We've got some love scenes together and I am dr...
OLIVER REED Even though people say Richard Harris and I have been having a great feud, it's not true.
OLIVER REED Then you get into it, especially if you start talking about football, fighting and Muhammad Ali. The...
OLIVER REED But the trouble is that when you drink it, you invariably meet other people drinking it.
OLIVER REED I like the effect drink has on me.
OLIVER REED I have made many serious statements - I just can't remember any of them. I guess they mustn'...
OLIVER REED I believe my woman shouldn't work outside the home.
OLIVER REED I also use women as a sex object; maybe I'm kinky. However, I like to talk to them as well.
OLIVER REED When I come home and I'm tired from filming all day, I expect her to be there and make sure ever...
OLIVER REED I like to give my inhibitions a bath now and then.
OLIVER REED I do think a carpenter needs a good hammer to bang in the nail.
OLIVER REED I wouldn't like to see a chick of mine taking her clothes off and kissing a fellow on screen. An...
OLIVER REED I might get drunk one day and fall in love or fall over a hooker outside, and I would have consummat...
OLIVER REED I have two ambitions in life: one is to drink every pub dry, the other is to sleep with every woman ...
OLIVER REED I'm not a villain, I've never hurt anyone. I'm just a tawdry character who explodes now ...
OLIVER REED 2005 was a great year for me for fantastic roles that nobody saw.
OLIVER PLATT I think of myself as an actor.
OLIVER PLATT The only thing I wanted to do when I was a young naive kid was to become a New York stage actor.
OLIVER PLATT You know I feel very fortunate that my life has turned out the way that it has - whatever that means...
OLIVER PLATT I love the script and I just thought it was a great role. Like I say, it's like this - the scrip...
OLIVER PLATT You know that was much more of a kind of cameo, I love the movie, I love the story, I love Johnny as...
OLIVER PLATT You know, grieve your wife, this is an impulsive thing and you have no idea the kind of trouble you&...
OLIVER PLATT The directors that I end up having a really good time with are the ones that understand the fluidity...
OLIVER PLATT People start to act very unusually when they find out that they're dying, that they don't ha...
OLIVER PLATT A Commander-in-Chief needs to do two things. One - tell us who the enemy is. And two - say we are fi...
OLIVER NORTH God knows, we don't want prayer.
OLIVER NORTH And of course there is so much of World War II that is documented that we never have seen.
OLIVER NORTH I am here to accept responsibility for that which I did. I will not accept responsibility for that w...
OLIVER NORTH Vladimir Putin is leading a dying country. Vladimir Putin's regime exports three things: petrole...
OLIVER NORTH Without any intended hubris, I've lead a pretty exciting life. What I've tried to do in Miss...
OLIVER NORTH I would not trade you a billion dollars for the kids I led to combat in Vietnam or in fact any of th...
OLIVER NORTH I came here to tell you the truth, the good, the bad and the ugly.
OLIVER NORTH If you could have imagined that someone is happy that Obama is president, it has to be Jimmy Carter ...
OLIVER NORTH I never considered myself a fall guy. I know what I did. I know why I did it. I'm not ashamed of...
OLIVER NORTH The Obama administration has turned a blind eye to radical Islam since before they came to office. I...
OLIVER NORTH As a Marine officer in combat, I was responsible for the lives and safety of all the Marines who ser...
OLIVER NORTH We've got a very difficult situation created by this embrace of the so-called Arab Spring. And t...
OLIVER NORTH The United Nations passed so-called sanctions again on North Korea, and they've said they 'w...
OLIVER NORTH Today, only 2 percent of the people know the name of someone serving in uniform. That means 2 percen...
OLIVER NORTH The lesson of Pearl Harbor ought never to be forgotten, and of course the motto that came from that,...
OLIVER NORTH Nothing is going to change the fact that I believe Ronald Reagan is the greatest president in my lif...
OLIVER NORTH I thought using the Ayatollah's money to support the Nicaraguan resistance was a neat idea.
OLIVER NORTH All of my high school male teachers were WWII and/or Korean War veterans. They taught my brothers an...
OLIVER NORTH A Germany team should not be afraid going into a tournament. History shows that we can raise the lev...
OLIVER KAHN This match is about sport and I separate that completely from politics.
OLIVER KAHN When you look at our programme for the next few weeks, you do not fancy a trip to the Oktoberfest.
OLIVER KAHN If I play, I try to concentrate on producing my best.
OLIVER KAHN There is no reason to change this system. I don't think we'll abandon it. For us the most im...
OLIVER KAHN We are Bayern Munich and English teams always have trouble as soon as they leave the island.
OLIVER KAHN Complaining and arguing will not help. We are fully concentrating on the game against the Czechs.
OLIVER KAHN I have a feeling we are going to be world champions, I can't really explain why. Brazil are prob...
OLIVER KAHN If we perform as a unit and if every single player gives it his very best, everything can happen.
OLIVER KAHN I want babies. I think I'll be a great dad.
OLIVER HUDSON My mom is in her mid-60s and has more energy and is more youthful than any human being I know. It...
OLIVER HUDSON You can love someone like your son, even if he's not your biological son, and you can love someo...
OLIVER HUDSON Personally, fame never really played any part in our family life.
OLIVER HUDSON Parent hard, play hard. That's my philosophy.
OLIVER HUDSON His advice to me is basically to just love what you do and don't let the fear of failure stop yo...
OLIVER HUDSON We were taught manners and we had to do our chores - Katie and I grew up as normal kids.
OLIVER HUDSON I have a box of things from Becca, my high school girlfriend, and Vanessa; and each one of them was ...
OLIVER HUDSON Father or stepfather - those are just titles to me. They don't mean anything.
OLIVER HUDSON Fathers in today's modern families can be so many things.
OLIVER HUDSON Blood relatives often have nothing to do with family, and similarly, family is about who you choose ...
OLIVER HUDSON That's another fine mess you've gotten me into.
OLIVER HARDY We never see ourselves as others see us.
OLIVER HARDY The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stout...
OLIVER GOLDSMITH Where wealth accumulates, men decay.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated ...
OLIVER GOLDSMITH People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH People did not even then like to eat dirt, if they could see it.
OLIVER EVANS It frequently happens that two persons, reasoning right on a mechanical subject, think alike and inv...
OLIVER EVANS I would have been glad to have lived under my wood side, and to have kept a flock of sheep, rather t...
OLIVER CROMWELL Put your trust in God; but be sure to keep your powder dry.
OLIVER CROMWELL No one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going.
OLIVER CROMWELL We are Englishmen; that is one good fact.
OLIVER CROMWELL Who can love to walk in the dark? But providence doth often so dispose.
OLIVER CROMWELL Keep your faith in God, but keep your powder dry.
OLIVER CROMWELL God made them as stubble to our swords.
OLIVER CROMWELL Do not trust the cheering, for those persons would shout as much if you or I were going to be hanged...
OLIVER CROMWELL It's a great time to be doing political satire when the world is on a knife edge.
JOHN OLIVER My general rule is that if everyone knew how to cook fresh produce from their local area, and Monday...
JAMIE OLIVER How can it be said we should use only constitutional means in our struggle, when all resistance is i...
OLIVER TAMBO German is a much more precise language than English. Americans throw the word love around for everyt...
OLIVER MARKUS If we wish to know about a man, we ask 'what is his story--his real, inmost story?'--for each of us ...
OLIVER SACKS The British press are a group of unremitting scumbags. And sometimes they use that scumbaggery to go...
JOHN OLIVER I think Americans still can't help but respond to the natural authority of this voice. Deep down...
JOHN OLIVER In 'D.A.R.Y.L.' there was a part where I had to freeze to death, and they didn't even us...
BARRET OLIVER Everyone can do a character the way they want to do it, unless the director tells them not to, which...
BARRET OLIVER I didn't start out with a spectacular movie. Many people think you don't have to go from not...
BARRET OLIVER It would be a pity if, frustrated by the price of travel, we elected to become a society that never ...
BARNEY OLIVER In the past, on Earth, it has largely been to exploit foreign resources and to expand the domestic t...
BARNEY OLIVER Years of science fiction have produced a mindset that it is human destiny to expand from Earth, to t...
BARNEY OLIVER No one can deny the excitement of visiting another world.
BARNEY OLIVER Antimatter is not a source of energy for us, it's a method of storing energy, compact but ineffi...
BARNEY OLIVER The factor most ignored in discussing interstellar flight is the kinetic energy that must be investe...
BARNEY OLIVER If interstellar travel is as time- or energy- demanding as the above figures indicate, it is far fro...
BARNEY OLIVER Above all, I would not expect a wise race, at great expense, to set loose an army of self-replicatin...
BARNEY OLIVER And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His h...
OLIVER GOLDSMITH The land on which the cattle grazed was communal property. It was owned by no one. It was nobody'...
OLIVER TAMBO My family are from Liverpool, so I have some twang there - I have a Midlands accent, and I was raise...
JOHN OLIVER If a man is after money, he's money mad; if he keeps it, he's a capitalist; if he spends it, he's a ...
VIC OLIVER Take a dollar from a thousand and it will be a thousand no more.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I
had gained a new friend. When I ...
OLIVER GOLDSMITH In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and
receives more instruction from the Press ...
OLIVER GOLDSMITH