Many men would take the death-sentence without a whimper, to escape the life-sentence which fate carries in her other hand. T. E. Lawrence More Quotes by T. E. Lawrence More Quotes From T. E. Lawrence The Beduin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God. T. E. Lawrence looks As long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous and cruel. T. E. Lawrence fighting silly long In peace-armies discipline meant the hunt, not of an average but of an absolute; the hundred per cent standard in which the ninety-nine were played down to the level of the weakest man on parade.... The deeper the discipline, the lower was the individual excellence; also the more sure the performance. T. E. Lawrence army military men The beginning and ending of the secret of handling Arabs is unremitting study of them. T. E. Lawrence beginnings-and-endings study secret Mankind has had ten-thousand years of experience at fighting and if we must fight, we have no excuse for not fighting well. T. E. Lawrence no-excuses fighting years The literature of disease is more interesting to me than all the healthy books. T. E. Lawrence healthy book interesting I could write for hours on the lustfulness of moving Swiftly. T. E. Lawrence hours writing moving Men have looked upon the desert as barren land, the free holding of whoever chose; but in fact each hill and valley in it had a man who was its acknowledged owner and would quickly assert the right of his family or clan to it, against aggression. T. E. Lawrence desert land men Isn't it true that the fault of birth rests somewhat on the child? I believe it's we who led our parents on to bear us, and it's our unborn children who make our flesh itch. T. E. Lawrence parent believe children It seemed that rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it: such a base as we had in the Red Sea Parts, the desert, or in the minds of the men we converted to our creed. T. E. Lawrence sea mind men I had dropped one form and not taken on the other, and was become like Mohammed's coffin in our legend, with a resultant feeling of intense loneliness in life, and a contempt, not for other men, but for all they do. T. E. Lawrence loneliness taken men If I could talk it like Dahoum, you would never be tired of listening to me. T. E. Lawrence if-i-could tired listening Suppose we were (as we might be) an influence, an idea, a thing intangible, invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head. We might be a vapour, blowing where we listed Ours should be a war of detachment. We were to contain the enemy by the silent threat of a vast, unknown desert T. E. Lawrence army war ideas We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of God… Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass – a beautiful swift seeming of spring; which, after a day’s heat, fell dusty. T. E. Lawrence military spring beautiful I prefer lies to truth, especially when the lies are about me. T. E. Lawrence lying All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. T. E. Lawrence Arab civilizations had been of an abstract nature, moral and intellectual rather than applied; and their lack of public spirit made their excellent private qualities futile. They were fortunate in their epoch: Europe had fallen barbarous; and the memory of Greek and Latin learning was fading from men's minds. T. E. Lawrence memory learning nature men Bedouin ways were hard even for those brought up to them, and for strangers, terrible: a death in life. T. E. Lawrence strangers hard life death When I am angry, I pray God to swing our globe into the fiery sun and prevent the sorrows of the not-yet-born: but when I am content, I want to lie forever in the shade, till I become a shade myself. T. E. Lawrence i-am myself angry god We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves; yet when we achieved, and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew. T. E. Lawrence new victory men world
