T. E. Lawrence Quotes

“Do not try and do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not win it for them.”

“Dream your dreams with open eyes and make them come true.”

“Half a calamity is better than a whole one.”

“He was old and wise, which meant tired and disappointed.”

“I prefer lies to truth, especially when the lies are about me.”

“It is difficult to keep quiet when everything is being done wrong, but the less you lose your temper the greater your advantage. Also then you will not go mad yourself.”

“Misery, anger, indignation, discomfort-those conditions produce literature. Contentment-never. So there you are.”

“Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals.”

“The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped.”

“The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armoury of the modern commander.”

“You wonder what I am doing? Well, so do I, in truth. Days seem to dawn, suns to shine, evenings to follow, and then I sleep. What I have done, what I am doing, what I am going to do, puzzle and bewilder me. Have you ever been a leaf and fallen from your tree in autumn and been really puzzled about it? That’s the feeling.”

“Immorality, I know. Immortality, I cannot judge.”

“Cling tight to your sense of humour. You will need it every day.”

“Your success will be proportioned to the amount of mental effort you devote to it.”

“Many men would take the death-sentence without a whimper, to escape the life-sentence which fate carries in her other hand.”

“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 on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”

“To make war upon rebellion is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife.”