Top 40 E.H. Gombrich Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The history of the world is, sadly, not a pretty poem. It offers little variety, and it is nearly always the unpleasant things that are repeated, over and over again.”

— E.H. Gombrich

2. “Never favour those who flatter you most, but hold rather to those who risk your displeasure for your own good. Never neglect business for pleasure, organise your life so that there is time in it for relaxation and entertainment. Give the business of government your full attention. Inform yourself as much as you can before taking any decision. Make every effort to get to know men of distinction, so that you may call on them when you need them. Be courteous to all, speak hurtfully to no man.”

— E.H. Gombrich

3. “There is no reality without interpretation; just as there is no innocent eye, there is no innocent ear.”

— E.H. Gombrich

4. “One of Russia’s tsars, around 1580, was known as Ivan the Terrible, and rightly so. Beside him Nero was mild.”

— E.H. Gombrich

5. “The term which psychology has coined for our relative imperviousness to the dizzy variations that go on in the world around us is “constancy.” The color, shape, and brightness of things remain to us relatively constant, even though we may notice some variation with the change of distance, illumination, angle of vision, and so on.”

— E.H. Gombrich

6. “The artist creates his own elite, and the elite its own artists.”

— E.H. Gombrich

7. “The familiar will always remain the likely starting point for the rendering of the unfamiliar; an existing representation will always exert its spell over the artist even while he strives to record the truth.”

— E.H. Gombrich

8. “It is the power of expectation rather than the power of conceptual knowledge that molds what we see in life not less than in art.”

— E.H. Gombrich

9. “China is, in fact, the only country in the world to be ruled for hundreds of years, not by the nobility, nor by soldiers, nor even by the priesthood, but by scholars.”

— E.H. Gombrich

10. “And it is because they seem so natural that they are so beautiful.”

— E.H. Gombrich

11. “What I have always loved best about the history of the world is that it is true. That all the extraordinary things we read were no less real than you and I are today.”

— E.H. Gombrich

12. “All art originates in the human mind, in our reactions to the world rather than in the visible world itself, and it is precisely because all art is “conceptual” that all representations are recognizable by their style.”

— E.H. Gombrich

13. “Cyrus became lord of that great realm. His first act was to free all the peoples held in captivity by the Babylonians. Among them were the Jews, who went home to Jerusalem.”

— E.H. Gombrich

14. “Think of it like this. If you are sad because you can’t have something you want – maybe a book or a toy – you can do one of two things: you can do your best to get it, or you can stop wanting it. Either way, if you succeed, you won’t be sad any more.”

— E.H. Gombrich

15. “Their assemblies had taught the Athenians how to discuss all matters openly, with arguments for and against. This was good training in learning how to think.”

— E.H. Gombrich

16. “The first man to understand the extraordinary magical power of applying mathematical calculation to things in nature was an Italian called Galileo Galilei.”

— E.H. Gombrich

17. “Later in his life Gautama told the story of his decision in a sermon: ‘And so it came about that, in the full freshness and enjoyment of my youth, in glowing health, my hair still black, and against the wishes of my weeping and imploring elders, I shaved my head and beard, dressed in coarse robes, and forsook the shelter of my home.”

— E.H. Gombrich

18. “It’s bad idea to try to prevent people from knowing their own history. If you want to do anything new you must first make sure you know what people have tried before.”

— E.H. Gombrich

19. “At first there’s nothing to see, but you feel a sort of weariness that tells you something is in the air.”

— E.H. Gombrich

20. “The artist gives the beholder increasingly ‘more to do,’ he draws him into the magic circle of creation and allows him to experience something of the thrill of ‘making’ which had once been the privilege of the artist.”

— E.H. Gombrich

21. “The more we become aware of the enormous pull in man to repeat what he has learned, the greater will be our admiration for those exceptional beings who could break this spell and make a significant advance on which others could build.”

— E.H. Gombrich

22. “The artist, no less than the writer, needs a vocabulary before he can embark on a “copy” of reality.”

— E.H. Gombrich

23. “Voor de mengeling van volken die onze aarde bewonen, zal het steeds belangrijker worden dat we elkaar respecteren en tolereren, alleen al omdat we door de technische vooruitgang steeds dichter op elkaar worden gedrukt.”

— E.H. Gombrich

24. “A painting which represents a familiar subject in an unexpected way is often condemned for no better reason than that it does not seem right.”

— E.H. Gombrich

25. “They may have heard that Rembrandt was famous for his chiaroscuro... so they nod wisely when they see a Rembrandt, mumble ‘wonderful chiaroscuro,’ and wander onto the next picture. I want to be quite frank about this danger of half-knowledge and snobbery, for we are all apt to succumb to such temptation.”

— E.H. Gombrich

26. “The Ice Age lasted for an unimaginably long time. Many tens of thousands of years, which was just as well, for otherwise these people would not have had time to invent all these things. But gradually the earth grew warmer and the ice retreated to the high mountains, and people – who by now were much like us – learnt, with the warmth, to plant grasses and then grind the seeds to make a paste which they could bake in the fire, and this was bread.”

— E.H. Gombrich

27. “Nature reflected in art always reflects the artist’s own mind, his predilections, his enjoyments, and therefore his moods.”

— E.H. Gombrich

28. “One Egyptian word for sculptor was actually ‘He-who-keeps-alive.”

— E.H. Gombrich

29. “So sang the ancient Egyptians. And they were right. For, thanks to the Nile, their land grew rich and powerful. Mightiest of all was their king. One king ruled over all the Egyptians, and the first to do so was King Menes. Do you remember when that was? It was in 3100 BC. And can you also remember – perhaps from Bible stories – what those.”

— E.H. Gombrich

30. “However, other machines changed the world even more profoundly. These were the machines which made use of the forces of nature instead of manpower.”

— E.H. Gombrich

31. “But like the crusaders, who in the name of piety had carried out that dreadful massacre in Jerusalem, there were many citizens who failed to hear in those penitential sermons a call to mend their ways, and instead learnt to hate all those who didn’t share their faith.”

— E.H. Gombrich

32. “But because it lay between those two countries, first it would be conquered and ruled by the Egyptians, and then the Babylonians would invade, so that the people who lived there were constantly being driven from one place to another. They built themselves towns and fortresses, to no avail. They were still not strong.”

— E.H. Gombrich

33. “In the two hundred years that followed the Enlightenment, more mysteries of nature were studied and explained than in the preceding two thousand years. But what you must never forget is the importance for our own lives of tolerance, reason and humanity – the three fundamental principles of the Enlightenment.”

— E.H. Gombrich

34. “He sent messengers ahead to meet Alexander and offered him half his kingdom and his daughter in marriage, if only he would agree not to fight. ‘If I were Alexander, I’d take it,’ said Alexander’s friend, Parmenios. ‘And so would I, if I were Parmenios,’ was Alexander’s reply.”

— E.H. Gombrich

35. “Naturally, that doesn’t mean that all the news which now reaches us from all over the world is true. One of the things I also learned was not to believe everything I read in the newspapers.”

— E.H. Gombrich

36. “And if we also ask, ‘And how exactly did that happen?’ we will be asking about history. Not just a story, but our story, the story that we call the history of the world. Shall we begin?”

— E.H. Gombrich

37. “Unfortunately grown-ups don’t behave any better. Especially when they have nothing else to do or are having a hard time – or, sometimes, when they just think they are having a hard time. They band together with other real or supposed companions in misfortune and take to the streets, marching in step and parroting mindless slogans, filled with their own importance.”

— E.H. Gombrich

38. “It is not their standard of craftmanship which is different from ours, but their ideas.”

— E.H. Gombrich

39. “But Louis XIV had clever ministers, mainly men of humble origin chosen for their outstanding ability.”

— E.H. Gombrich

40. “If the appetite goes, the pain goes with it.”

— E.H. Gombrich

41. “For above all the dread and uncertainty in which ignorant people lived like children in the dark – frightened of witches and wizards, of the Devil and evil spirits – above it all was the bright starlit sky of the new faith, showing them the way.”

— E.H. Gombrich

42. “A member of a guild was bound to support his fellow members and not steal their trade, nor must he cheat his own customers with poor goods. He was expected to treat his apprentices and journeymen well and do his best to uphold the good name of his trade and his town. He was, so to speak, one of God’s craftsmen, just as a knight was a warrior fighting for God.”

— E.H. Gombrich