T. E. Lawrence

Then rose up the horror which would make civilized man shun justice like a plague if he had not the needy to serve him as hangmen for wages.

Rebels, especially successful rebels, were of necessity bad subjects and worse governors.

He saw me shivering, partly I think, with cold, and made it whistle over my ear, taunting me that before his tenth cut I would howl for mercy, and at the twentieth beg for the caresses of the Bey; and then he began to lash me madly across …

Feisal asked me if I would wear Arab clothes like his own while in the camp. I should find it better for my own part, since it was a comfortable dress in which to live Arab-fashion as we must do.

This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed in thought.

The Bedouin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God.

Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances.

Some Englishmen, of whom Kitchener was chief, believed that a rebellion of Arabs against Turks would enable England, while fighting Germany, simultaneously to defeat Turkey. Their knowledge of the nature and power and country of the …

All our subject provinces to me were not worth one dead Englishman.

By them one saw vividly how great it was to be their kin, and English. And we were casting them by thousands into the fire to the worst of deaths, not to win the war but that the corn and rice and oil of Mesopotamia might be ours.

I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars To gain you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house, that your eyes might be shining for me When I came.

the sword also means clean-ness + death

"The Jewish experiment is a conscious effort, on the part of the least European people in Europe, to make head against the drift of the ages, and return once more to the Orient from which they came.” as quoted by R.Elie Mishel, "Lawrence …

In fifty words: Granted mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the …

It seemed that rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it

The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armory of the modern commander...

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. It can only be ensured by instinct, sharpened by thought practicing the …

An opinion can be argued with; a conviction is best shot. The logical end of a war of creeds is the final destruction of one, and Salammbo is the classical text-book instance.

Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your …

Arabia for the Arabs, Judea for the Jews, and Armenia for the Armenians.

... wait and watch with the deepest interest the development of the Jewish National Home. If Jews succeeded in translating the policy embodied in the Balfour Declaration [to action by establishing a state], it would certainly be a …

The sword was odd. The Arab Movement was one: Feisal another (his name means a flashing sword): then there is the excluded notion, Garden of Eden touch: and the division meaning, like the sword in the bed of mixed sleeping, from the Morte …

This death’s livery which walled its bearers from ordinary life was sign that they have sold their wills and bodies to the State: and contracted themselves into a service not the less abject for that its beginning was voluntary.

Whether they are fit for independence or not remains to be tried. Merit is no qualification for freedom. Bulgars, Afghans, and Tahitans have it. Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent, or inhabit a country so thorny …