|
c283d11
|
The bravest people are the ones who don't mind looking like cowards.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
14a8ce3
|
The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then --..
|
|
depression
learning
education
teaching
|
T.H. White |
|
9cdc163
|
She hardly ever thought of him. He had worn a place for himself in some corner of her heart, as a sea shell, always boring against the rock, might do. The making of the place had been her pain. But now the shell was safely in the rock. It was lodged, and ground no longer.
|
|
pain
sorrow
love
longing
unrequited-love
|
T.H. White |
|
4d8e6a9
|
Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically--to those who hardly think about us in return.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
0d9fab8
|
Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness. Unfortunately the happiness is there. There is alwa..
|
|
pain
faith
living
positivity
happiness
hope
life
love
stoicism
misery
|
T.H. White |
|
0d81653
|
We cannot build the future by avenging the past.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
93791a8
|
If people reach perfection they vanish, you know.
|
|
perfection
people
human
inspirational
|
T.H. White |
|
5785146
|
Everything not forbidden is compulsory
|
|
humor
totalitarianism
government
|
T.H. White |
|
8428226
|
The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.
|
|
unity
|
T.H. White |
|
95f85ae
|
Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance.
|
|
inspirational
|
T.H. White |
|
ed055fc
|
Only fools want to be great.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
9c07446
|
They made me see that the world was beautiful if you were beautiful, and that you couldn't get unless you gave. And you had to give without wanting to get.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
feb8e94
|
Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: for love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
43c4021
|
Might does not make right! Right makes right!
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
5786f3e
|
In war, our elders may give the orders...but it is the young who have to fight.
|
|
war
youth
|
T.H. White |
|
fb5e605
|
It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible.
|
|
upbringing
mistakes
children
|
T.H. White |
|
c9cf4ba
|
The best thing for being sad ... is to learn something.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
35c8da4
|
We find that at present the human race is divided into one wise man, nine knaves, and ninety fools out of every hundred. That is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them, and become 'politicians'; the wise man stands out, because he knows himself to be hopelessly outnumbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics, or philosophy; while the ninety fools plod off under..
|
|
sad-but-true
sword-sentiments
political-science
|
T.H. White |
|
9b4d0e3
|
Those who lived by the sword were forced to die by it.
|
|
war
|
T.H. White |
|
39add0d
|
You could not give up a human heart as you could give up drinking. The drink was yours, and you could give it up: but your lover's soul was not your own: it was not at your disposal; you had a duty towards it.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
d04f6d5
|
There was just such a man when I was young--an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. But the thing which this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ. Perhaps we may assume that Jesus knew as much as the A..
|
|
war
philosphy
jesus
free-will
ideas-are-power
might
reformation
hitler
jesus-christ
ideas
|
T.H. White |
|
2e06e15
|
Perhaps he does not want to be friends with you until he knows what you are like. With owls, it is never easy-come-easy-go.
|
|
friends
friendship
owls
|
T.H. White |
|
56d6549
|
A chaos of mind and body - a time for weeping at sunsets and at the glamour of moonlight - a confusion and profusion of beliefs and hopes, in God, in Truth, in Love, and in Eternity - an ability to be transported by the beauty of physical objects - a heart to ache or swell- a joy so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful that oceans could lie between them...
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
2eb71a1
|
I can imagine nothing more terrifying than an Eternity filled with men who were all the same. The only thing which has made life bearable...has been the diversity of creatures on the surface of the globe.
|
|
eternity
|
T.H. White |
|
420a1b5
|
Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness.
|
|
pain
happiness
dichotomy
stoicism
|
T.H. White |
|
8a06ded
|
There is one fairly good reason for fighting - and that is, if the other man starts it. You see, wars are a great wickedness, perhaps the greatest wickedness of a wicked species. They are so wicked that they must not be allowed. When you can be perfectly certain that the other man started them, then is the time when you might have a sort of duty to stop them.
|
|
war
fighting
right
|
T.H. White |
|
54bb97a
|
There is a thing called knowledge of the world, which people do not have until they are middle-aged. It is something which cannot be taught to younger people, because it is not logical and does not obey laws which are constant. It has no rules. Only, in the long years which bring women to the middle of life, a sense of balance develops...when she is beginning to hate her used body, she suddenly finds that she can do it. She can go on living..
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
bc0a835
|
If I were to be made a knight," said the Wart, staring dreamily into the fire, "I should insist on doing my vigil by myself, as Hob does with his hawks, and I should pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there would be none left, and, if I were defeated, I would be the one to suffer for it." "That would be extremely presumptuous of you," said Merlyn, "and you would be conquered, a..
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
fa9eed1
|
It is a pity that there are no big creatures to prey on humanity. If there were enough dragons and rocs, perhaps mankind would turn its might against them. Unfortunately man is preyed upon by microbes, which are too small to be appreciated.
|
|
war
odin
sword-sentiments
|
T.H. White |
|
d9666fa
|
War is like a fire. One man may start it, but it will spread all over. It is not about one thing in particular.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
60d5071
|
If there is one thing I can't stand, it is stupidity. I always say that stupidity is the Sin against the Holy Ghost.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
1e151d9
|
You run a grave risk, my boy," said the magician, "of being turned into a piece of bread, and toasted."
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
1beb9c5
|
But there was a time when each of us stood naked before the world, confronting life as a serious problem with which we were intimately and passionately concerned... There was a time when Free Love versus Catholic Morality was a question of as much importance to our hot bodies as if a pistol had been clapped to our heads. Further back, there were times when we wondered with all our souls, what the world was, what love was, what we were ourse..
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
9ac2243
|
I am an anarchist, like any other sensible person. ~ Merlyn
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
347c1ec
|
He felt in his heart cruelty and cowardice, the things which made him brave and kind.
|
|
kindness
fantasy
|
T.H. White |
|
8fc8e21
|
Kay] was not at all an unpleasant person really, but clever, quick, proud, passionate and ambitious. He was one of those people who would be neither a follower nor a leader, but only an aspiring heart, impatient in the failing body which imprisoned it.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
edd10b5
|
It is only people who are lacking, or bad, or inferior, who have to be good at things. You have always been full and perfect, so you had nothing to make up for.
|
|
love
inspirational
self-deprecating
humility
wooing
|
T.H. White |
|
7aca306
|
I will tell you something else, King, which may be a surprise for you. It will not happen for hundreds of years, but both of us are to come back.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
a676512
|
Mordred and Agravaine thought Arthur hypocritical--as all decent men must be, if you assume that decency can't exist.
|
|
hypocrisy
|
T.H. White |
|
5770b96
|
Love is a trick played on us by the forces of evolution. Pleasure is the bait laid down by the same. There is only power. Power is of the individual mind but the mind's power is not enough. Power of the body decides everything in the end and only might is right.
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
84a8a88
|
The best thing for disturbances of the spirit is to learn. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love and lose your moneys to a monster, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to lear..
|
|
|
T.H. White |
|
49d6ede
|
It is the bad people who need to have principles to restrain them.
|
|
restraint
principles
|
T.H. White |
|
3b64cbe
|
And do you know another thing, Arthur? Life is too bitter already, without territories and wars and noble feuds.
|
|
war
life
merlin
pacifism
nobility
peace
|
T.H. White |
|
35cac99
|
He caught a glimpse of that extraordinary faculty in man, that strange, altruistic, rare, and obstinate decency which will make writers or scientists maintain their truths at the risk of death. Eppur si muove, Galileo was to say; it moves all the same. They were to be in a position to burn him if he would go on with it, with his preposterous nonsense about the earth moving round the sun, but he was to continue with the sublime assertion bec..
|
|
integrity
optimism
truth
|
T.H. White |