T. E. Lawrence quotes

T. E. Lawrence was a British archaeologist, army officer, and writer, widely known as "Lawrence of Arabia." His role in the Arab Revolt during World War I made him a legendary figure in both Western and Middle Eastern history. He became famous for his adventurous spirit and contributions to military strategy and diplomacy. Here are 47 of his quotes:

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

I've been & am absurdly over-estimated. There are no supermen & I'm quite ordinary, & will say so whatever the artistic results. In that point I'm one of the few people who tell the truth about myself.

T. E. Lawrence

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

T. E. Lawrence

All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas!

T. E. Lawrence

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.

T. E. Lawrence

To have news value is to have a tin can tied to one's tail.

T. E. Lawrence

The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor.

T. E. Lawrence

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

T. E. Lawrence

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

T. E. Lawrence

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.

T. E. Lawrence

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.

T. E. Lawrence

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 d'Arthur. I don't know which was in your mind, but they all came to me - and the sword also means clean-ness, and death.

T. E. Lawrence

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

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

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 Arabic-speaking peoples made them think that the issue of such a rebellion would be happy: and indicated its character and method. So they allowed it to begin...

T. E. Lawrence

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. Even the wells and trees had their masters, who allowed men to make firewood of the one and drink of the other freely, as much as was required for their need, but who would instantly check anyone trying to turn the property to account and to exploit it or its products among others for private benefit. The desert was held in a crazed communism by which Nature and the elements were for the free use of every known friendly person for his own purposes and no more. Logical outcomes were the reduction of this licence to privilege by the men of the desert, and their hardness to strangers unprovided with introduction or guarantee, since the common security lay in the common responsibility of kinsmen.

T. E. Lawrence

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.

T. E. Lawrence

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

T. E. 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 end decisive, and against them perfections of means and spirit struggle quite in vain.

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.

T. E. Lawrence

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 practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.

T. E. Lawrence

...but suppose we were an influence (as we might be), an idea, a thing invulnerable, intangible, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile as a whole, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head, we might be a vapor, blowing where we listed. Our kingdoms lay in each man's mind, as we wanted nothing material to live on, so perhaps we offered nothing material to the killing. It seemed a regular soldier might be helpless without a target. He would own the ground he sat on, and what he could poke his rifle at.

T. E. Lawrence