Pygmalion (1938)

Leslie Howard: Professor Henry Higgins

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Quotes 

• Prof. Henry Higgins : [directed to Eliza in anger]  Get out and come home and don't be a fool!

  Mrs. Higgins : Very nicely put indeed, Henry. No woman could resist such an invitation.

• Prof. Henry Higgins : Have you no morals man?

  Alfred Doolittle : Can't afford them guv'nor.

• Prof. Henry Higgins : You might marry you know? Youre not bad-looking; it's quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes-not now, of course, because youre crying and looking as ugly as the very devil; but when youre all right and quite yourself, youre what I should call attractive. That is, to the people in the marrying line, you understand. You go to bed and have a good nice rest; and then get up and look at yourself in the glass; and you wont feel so cheap.

• Prof. Henry Higgins : If you can't appreciate what you've got, you'd better get what you can appreciate.

• Professor Henry Higgins : Where the devil are my slippers, Eliza?

• Prof. Henry Higgins : Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language, I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba!

• Prof. Henry Higgins : The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains.

• Eliza Doolittle : What's to become of me?

  Prof. Henry Higgins : Oh, so that's what's worrying you, is it? Ooh, you'll settle down somewhere or other. But I hadn't quite realized... that you were going away.

• Prof. Henry Higgins : Now listen to me, Eliza. You're going to live here for six months and learn to speak beautifully like a lady in a florist shop. If you're good and do whatever you're told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, have lots to eat and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If you're naughty and idle, you shall sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the King finds out you're not a lady, you will be taken by the guards to the Tower of London where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls. But, if you are not found out, you will receive a present of seven and sixpence to start life with as a lady in a shop. If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful and wicked girl and the angels will weep for you.

• Prof. Henry Higgins : Heaven help the master who is judged by his disciples.

• Colonel Pickering : Higgins, excuse the straight question, but are you a man of good character where women are concerned?

  Professor Henry Higgins : Have you ever known a man of good character where women are concerned?

  Colonel Pickering : Yes, very frequently.

  Professor Henry Higgins : Well, I haven't! I find...

  Mrs. Pearce : Breakfast is ready, sir

  Professor Henry Higgins : I find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, and a confounded nuisance. So I'm a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain one. Coffee?

  Colonel Pickering : Thanks. You know what I mean. I hope it's understood that no advantage is to be taken of her position.

  Professor Henry Higgins : What? That thing? Sacred, I assure you! I've taught scores of American millionairesses to speak English. The best looking women in the world. I'm seasoned. They might just as well be blocks of wood,

• Eliza Doolittle : You wanted me back only to put up with your tempers, and pick up your slippers, and fetch and carry for you.

  Prof. Henry Higgins : I haven't said I want you back at all.

  Eliza Doolittle : Oh, indeed, then, what are we talking about?

  Prof. Henry Higgins : About *you,* not about me. If you come back to me I shall treat you just the same as I've always treated you. I can't change my nature, and I don't intend to change my manners. My manners are exactly the same as Colonel Pickering's!

  Eliza Doolittle : That's not true. He treats a flower girl as if she were a duchess.

  Prof. Henry Higgins : I treat a duchess as if she were a flower girl!