Yes Minister (TV Series)
Doing the Honours (1981)
Nigel Hawthorne: Sir Humphrey Appleby
Photos
Quotes
-
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Minister, if you block honours pending economies, you might create a dangerous precedent.
James Hacker : You mean that if we do the right thing this time, we might have to do the right thing again next time. It seems on that philosophy, nothing would ever get done at all.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : On the contrary, many, many things must be done...
Sir Humphrey Appleby , James Hacker : [together] but nothing must be done for the first time.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : No, no, Minister. What I mean is that I am fully seized of your aims and of course I will do my utmost to see that they are put into practice.
James Hacker : If you would.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : And to that end, I recommend that we set up an interdepartmental committee with fairly broad terms of reference so that at the end of the day we'll be in the position to think through the various implications and arrive at a decision based on long-term considerations rather than rush prematurely into precipitate and possibly ill-conceived action which might well have unforeseen repercussions.
James Hacker : You mean no.
-
James Hacker : I'm not going to approve any honour to any civil servant in this department who hasn't earned it.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : What do you mean "earned it"?
James Hacker : I mean "earned it". "Done something to deserve it".
Sir Humphrey Appleby : [indignantly] But that's unheard of!
-
The Master of Ballie College : How might one set about persuading a Minister of the importance of Baillie College?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Oh, I don't know. Why don't you get him down here to a High Table dinner?
The Master of Ballie College : Is he of the intellectual caliber to understand our case?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Oh yes. Well, surely our case is intelligible to anyone with the intellectual caliber of of Winnie-the-Pooh.
The Master of Ballie College : Quite. And Hacker *is* of the intellectual caliber of Winnie-the-Pooh?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Oh yes. On his day.
