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17a0515
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Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically - to those who hardly think about us in return.
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T.H. White |
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7b90897
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A fortnight after the Winchester tournament, while Elaine nursed her hero back to life, Guenever was having a scene with Sir Bors at court. Being a woman-hater, Bors always had instructive scenes with women. He said what he thought, and they said what they thought, and neither of them understood the other a bit.
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T.H. White |
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260998b
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in going to sleep he had learned to vanquish light, and now the light could not rewake him.
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T.H. White |
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f15b425
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Don't kill me,' said the knight. 'I yield. I yield. You can't kill a man at mercy.' Lancelot put up his sword and went back from the knight, as if he were going back from his own soul. He felt in his heart cruelty and cowardice, the things which made him brave and kind. 'Get up,' he said. 'I won't hurt you. Get up, go.' The knight looked at him, on all fours like a dog, and stood up, crouching uncertainly. Lancelot went away and was sick.
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mercy
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T.H. White |
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57a384f
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He fancied himself on his humanity towards animals, as so many people do who are inhuman to their fellow men...
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T.H. White |
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c4e4990
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A good way of naming a day, is to call it by its wind. 'Wednesday' is an impersonal thing, but days are individual. A great deal more than half their individuality depends upon the wind. A good hunting or fishing diary would do better to have a column in which one wrote, for instance, 'A north-westerly day,' rather than the stupid date.
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T.H. White |
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01b6d8c
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You swim along," said the tench, "as if there was nothing to be afraid of in the world. Don't you see that this place is exactly like the forest which you had to come through to find me?"
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T.H. White |
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bf1602c
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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,
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T.H. White |
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d8accc5
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He said, 'Good dog, Beaumont the valiant, sleep now, old friend Beaumont, good old dog.' Then Robin's falchion let Beaumont out of this world, to run free with Orion and roll among the stars.
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T.H. White |
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87f8ea3
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No... - dijo sir Lanzarote-, pues una vez caido en la verguenza quiza no vuelva a recobrarse.
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T.H. White |
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fd9c55f
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Guenever began to breathe through her nose. She was feeling as if there were two red thumbs behind her eyeballs, trying to push them out, and she did not want to look at him. She was trying not to make a scene, and she dreaded her heart. She had shame and hatred of what she might say, but she could not help saying it. She was like a person swimming in a rough sea.
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T.H. White |
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cd8e3c7
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La bendicion del olvido, eso era lo esencial. Comenzar sin recordar el pasado. No se puede construir el futuro vengando agravios de tiempos ya idos.
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T.H. White |
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98c0088
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Oh, I love the mustard-pot!" cried the Wart. "Wherever did you get it?" At this the pot beamed all over its face and began to strut a bit, but Merlyn rapped it on the head with a teaspoon, so that it sat down and shut up at once. "It is not a bad pot," he said grudgingly. "Only it is inclined to give itself airs."
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T.H. White |
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6ccfe3e
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If you achieve perfection, you die.
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T.H. White |
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714a60e
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IT WAS CHRISTMAS night, the eve of the Boxing Day Meet. You must remember that this was in the old Merry England of Gramarye, when the rosy barons ate with their fingers, and had peacocks served before them with all their tail feathers streaming, or boars' heads with the tusks stuck in again--when there was no unemployment because there were too few people to be unemployed--when the forests rang with knights walloping each other on the helm..
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T.H. White |
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7ed32a6
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In this enormous flatness, there lived one element--the wind. For it was an element. It was a dimension, a power of darkness. In the human world, the wind comes from somewhere, and goes somewhere, and, as it goes, it passes through somewhere--through trees or streets or hedgerows. This wind came from nowhere. It was going through the flatness of nowhere, to no place. Horizontal, soundless except for a peculiar boom, tangible, infinite, the ..
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T.H. White |
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b0a7288
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Nay," said Sir Lancelot "...for once shamed may never be recovered."
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T.H. White |
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283a0aa
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The best thing for being sad,' replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, 'is to learn something. 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, 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 -..
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T.H. White |
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ce1e960
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They did not look at these things as good or bad, exciting, rational or terrible. They did not look at them at all, but accepted them as Done.
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T.H. White |
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886b57e
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We are so numerous that we are starving. Therefore we must encourage still larger families so as to become yet more numerous and starving. When we are so numerous and starving as all that, obviously we shall have a right to take other people's stores of seed. Besides, we shall by then have a numerous and starving army.
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T.H. White |
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d666df1
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We are more numerous than they are, therefore we have a right to their mash. They are more numerous than we are, therefore they are wickedly trying to steal our mash. We are a mighty race and have a natural right to subjugate their puny one. They are a mighty race and are unnaturally trying to subjugate our inoffensive one. We must attack them in self-defence. They are attacking us by defending themselves. If we do not attack them today, th..
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T.H. White |
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52cdaa1
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Pets are almost always fatal, to oneself or to them. It is the curse of possession or motherhood. Mothers ruin their children, choke them like ivy. Dog-lovers steal the souls of their dogs and lose something in exchange. There is an essay on this subject by (I think) Stella Benson called "A Firefly to Steer By." Everybody ought to read it." --
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motherhood
friendship
mothers
animals
pets
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T.H. White |
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d033471
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What a bursting heart of gratitude and triumph as the ravening monster slowly paced down the arm with gripping steps and pounced upon his breakfast! The rest of the day was a glow of pleasure, a kind of still life in which the sun shone on the flowers with more than natural brilliance, giving them the high lights of porcelain.
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goshawk
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T.H. White |
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c63d546
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One has to live one's knowledge
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T.H. White |
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f07839b
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Man, proud man, stands there in the twentieth century, complacently believing that the race has 'advanced' in the course of a thousand miserable years, and busy blowing his brothers to bits. When will they learn that it takes million years for a bird to modify a single one of its primary feathers? There he stands, the crashing lubber, pretending that everything is different because he has made an internal combustion engine. There he stands,..
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T.H. White |
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b3ff0c6
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Nobody can be saved from anything, unless they save themselves. It is hopeless doing things for people-- it is often very dangerous indeed to do things at all-- and the only thing worth doing for the race is to increase its stock of ideas. Then, if you make available a larger stock, the people are at liberty to help themselves from out of it. By this process the means of improvement is offered, to be accepted or rejected freely, and there i..
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T.H. White |
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5b7bcaa
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There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn - pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six..
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T.H. White |
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a4b6276
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It would be much the same thing if you each hired the best arguer you knew, to argue about it. In the last resort it is usually the richest person who wins, whether he hires the most expensive arguer or the most expensive fighter, so it is no good pretending that this is simply a matter of brute force.
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T.H. White |
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720c3c5
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You could talk to him about os and argos, suet and grease, croteys, fewmets and fiants, but he only looked polite. He knew that you were showing off your knowledge of these words, which were to him a business. You could talk about a mighty boar which had nearly slashed you last winter, but he only stared at you with his distant eyes. He had been slashed sixteen times by mighty boars, and his legs had white weals of shiny flesh that stretche..
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T.H. White |
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0cb7261
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THE Oldest Ones of All were gluttons. Probably it was because they seldom had enough to eat. You can read even nowadays a poem written by one of them, which is known as the Vision of Mac Conglinne. In this Vision there is a description of a castle made out of different kinds of food. The English for part of the poem goes like this: A lake of new milk I beheld In the midst of a fair plain. I saw a well-appointed house Thatched with butter. I..
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T.H. White |
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467e909
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In the end they came to the inner chamber, where Morgan le Fay herself lay stretched upon her bed of glorious lard.
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T.H. White |