T. H. White famous quotes

The bravest people are the ones who don’t mind looking like cowards.
-- T. H. White

#Courage #People #Mind

Only fools want to be great.
-- T. H. White

#Want #Fool

Is there anything more terrible than perpetual motion, than doing and doing and doing, without a reason, without a consciousness, without a change, without an end?
-- T. H. White

#Consciousness #Reason #Ends

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.
-- T. H. White

#Destiny #Men #Nuts

Those who lived by the sword were forced to die by it.
-- T. H. White

In war, our elders may give the orders...but it is the young who have to fight.
-- T. H. White

#War #Fighting #Order

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.
-- T. H. White

#Men #Diversity #Imagine

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.
-- T. H. White

#Beautiful #Simple #Would Be

Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically--to those who hardly think about us in return.
-- T. H. White

#Love #Inspirational #Heart

Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance.
-- T. H. White

#Graduation #Self #Essence

If people reach perfection they vanish, you know.
-- T. H. White

#People #Perfection

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 only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.
-- T. H. White

#Inspirational #Dream #Regret

The best thing for being sad ... is to learn something.
-- T. H. White

#Sadness #Being Sad

I think I ought to have some eddication,"said the Wart, "I can't think of anything to do.
-- T. H. White

#Thinking #Warts #Said

If God is supposed to be merciful,' [Arthur] retorted, 'I don't see why He shouldn't allow people to stumble into heaven, just as well as climb there
-- T. H. White

#People #Heaven #Arthur

If it takes a million years for a fish to become a reptile, has Man, in our few hundred, altered out of recognition?
-- T. H. White

#Men #Years #Reptiles

I am an anarchist, like any other sensible person. ~ Merlyn
-- T. H. White

#Anarchist #Sensible #Persons

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.
-- T. H. White

#Owl #Want #Doe

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

#War #Men #Fire

Unfortunately we have tried to establish Right by Might, and you just can't do that
-- T. H. White

#Might

Kay was older and bigger than the Wart, so that he was bound to win in the end, but he was more nervous and imaginative. He could imagine the effect of each blow that was aimed at him, and this weakened his defense. Wart was only an infuriated hurricane.
-- T. H. White

#Blow #Winning #Defense

Cavall came simply and gave his heart and soul.
-- T. H. White

#Heart #Soul #Heart And Soul

The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment.
-- T. H. White

#Patience #Self Improvement #Watches

You run a grave risk, my boy," said the magician, "of being turned into a piece of bread, and toasted.
-- T. H. White

#Running #Boys #Risk

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.
-- T. H. White

#Men #Dragons #Humanity

Were they, for some purpose almost too cunning for belief, only disguised as themselves?
-- T. H. White

#Purpose #Belief #Cunning

Life is too bitter already, without territories and wars and noble feuds
-- T. H. White

#War #Noble #Feuds

a king can only work with his best tools.
-- T. H. White

#Kings #Tools

Might does not make right! Right makes right!
-- T. H. White

#Doe #Might

The word "feral" has a kind of magic potency which allied itself to two other words, "ferocious" and "free." To revert to a feral state!
-- T. H. White

#Two #Magic #Kind

We cannot build the future by avenging the past.
-- T. H. White

#Past #Avenging

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

#Stupidity #Ghost #Sin

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.
-- T. H. White

#Inspirational #Teacher #Blow

Yes, that is the equality of man. Slaughter anybody who is better than you are, and then we shall be equal soon enough. All equally dead.
-- T. H. White

#Men #Enough #Slaughter

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 - to learn.
-- T. H. White

#Inspirational #Teacher #Lying

I would recommend a solo flight to all prospective suicides. It tends to make clear the issue of whether one enjoys being alive or not.
-- T. H. White

#Suicide #Issues #Alive

Aviators live by hours, not by days.
-- T. H. White

#Aviation #Hours #Live By

People commit suicide through weakness, not through strength.
-- T. H. White

#Suicide #People #Weakness

Wars are never fought for one reason," he said. "They are fought for dozens of reasons, in a muddle.
-- T. H. White

#War #Dozen #Reason

He was neither clever nor sensitive, but he was loyal--stubbornly sometimes, and even annoyingly and stupidly so in later life.
-- T. H. White

#Clever #Loyal #Sometimes

It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible.
-- T. H. White

#Children #Believe #Easy

It is the bad people who need to have principles to restrain them.
-- T. H. White

#People #Needs #Principles

The unicorn was white, with hoofs of silver and graceful horn of pearl... The glorious thing about him was his eye. There was a faint bluish furrow down each side of his nose, and this led to the eye sockets, and surrounded them in a pensive shade. The eyes, circled by this sad and beautiful darkness, were so sorrowful, lonely, gentle and nobly tragic, that they killed all other emotions except love.
-- T. H. White

#Beautiful #Lonely #Eye

Why can't you harness Might so that it works for Right? I know it sounds nonsense, but, I mean, you can't just say there is no such thing. The Might is there, in the bad half of people, and you can't neglect it. You can't cut it out but you might be able to direct it, if you see what I mean, so that it was useful instead of bad.
-- T. H. White

#Mean #Cutting #People

God is love, the bishops tell. Yes, I know, But love is hell.
-- T. H. White

#Love Is #Bishops #God Is Love

Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.
-- T. H. White

#Learning #Looks

Kings can only use their best tools.
-- T. H. White

#Kings #Use #Tools

Wrongs have to be redressed by reason, not by force.
-- T. H. White

#Reason #Force

Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit of comforting themselves for their degradation by pretending that children are childish.
-- T. H. White

#Children #Comforting #Degradation

The weather behaved itself. In the spring, the little flowers came out obediently in the meads, and the dew sparkled, and the birds sang. In the summer it was beautifully hot for no less than four months, and, if it did rain just enough for agricultural purposes, they managed to arrange it so that it rained while you were in bed. In the autumn the leaves flamed and rattled before the west winds, tempering their sad adieu with glory. And in the winter, which was confined by statute to two months, the snow lay evenly, three feet thick, but never turned into slush.
-- T. H. White

#Summer #Spring #Rain

The destiny of man is to unite, not to divide.
-- T. H. White

#Destiny #Men

We find that at present the human race is divided politically 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 out-numbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics or philosophy; while the ninety fools plod off behind the banners of the nine villains, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice and warfare.
-- T. H. White

#Wise #Philosophy #Optimistic

When shall I be dead and rid Of all the wrong my father did? How long, how long 'till spade and hearse Put to sleep my mother's curse?
-- T. H. White

#Mother #Father #Sleep

Believe me, the so-called primitive races who worshipped animals as gods were not so daft as people choose to pretend. At least they were humble. Why should not God have come to the earth as an earth-worm? There are a great many more worms than men, and they do a great deal more good.
-- T. H. White

#Believe #Humble #Animal

Dogs, like very small children, are quite mad.
-- T. H. White

#Dog #Children #Mad

The fisherman fishes as the urchin eats cream buns, from lust.
-- T. H. White

#Lust #Buns #Fisherman

God is love, the parson whined. Yes, and is he also blind?
-- T. H. White

#Blind #God Is Love

Middle-aged people can balance between believing in God and breaking all the commandments without difficulty.
-- T. H. White

#Believe #People #Balance

It is good to put your life in other people's hands.
-- T. H. White

#Hands #People

Mordred and Agravaine thought Arthur hypocritical—as all decent men must be, if you assume that decency can’t exist.
-- T. H. White

#Men #Assuming #Arthur

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

#Giving Up #Drinking #Heart

They had a year of joy, twelve months of the strange heaven which the salmon know on beds of river shingle, under the gin-clear water. For twenty-four years they were guilty, but this first year was the only one which seemed like happiness. Looking back on it, when they were old, they did not remember that in this year it had ever rained or frozen. The four seasons were coloured like the edge of a rose petal for them.
-- T. H. White

#Years #Rivers #Water

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

#Love Is #Mind #Body

It was called a tribute before a battle and a ransom afterwards.
-- T. H. White

#Battle #Ransom #Tribute

But they woke him with words, their cruel bright weapons.
-- T. H. White

#Weapons

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.
-- T. H. White

#War #Fighting #Men

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 hoyful and a sorrow so sorrowful that oceans could lie between them...
-- T. H. White

#Lying #Ocean #Heart

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 ourselves.
-- T. H. White

#Soul #Catholic #Hot

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

#Hate #Years #Law

The miracle was that he had been allowed to do a miracle. And ever, says Mallory, Sir Lancelot wept, as he had been a child that had been beaten.
-- T. H. White

#Children #Miracle #Lancelot

Jenny, all my life I have wanted to do miracles. I have wanted to be holy. I suppose it was ambition or pride or some other unworthy thing. It was not enough for me to conquer the world--I wanted to conquer heaven too.
-- T. H. White

#Ambition #Pride #Miracle

...All endeavours which are directed to a purely worldly end...contain within themselves the germs of their own corruption.
-- T. H. White

#Germs #Corruption #Ends

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

#Beautiful #Giving #World

The fate of this man or that man was less than a drop, although it was a sparkling one, in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea.
-- T. H. White

#Fate #Men #Sea

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.
-- T. H. White

#Perfect #People #Be Good

It seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough.
-- T. H. White

#Tragedy #Innocence #Enough

There were thousands of brown books in leather bindings, some chained to the book-shelves and others propped against each other as if they had had too much to drink and did not really trust themselves. These gave out a smell of must and solid brownness which was most secure.
-- T. H. White

#Book #Smell #Too Much

The race will find that capitalists and communists modify themselves so much during the ages that they end by being indistinguishable as democrats...
-- T. H. White

#Race #Age #Communist

A lot of brainless unicorns swaggering about and calling themselves educated just because they can push each other off a horse with a bit of a stick! It makes me tired.
-- T. H. White

#Horse #Tired #Calling

He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him, but the ones who went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas.
-- T. H. White

#Jumping #Talking #Sea

The nice thing about the queen of Flanders' daughter, had been that she did not laugh at him. A lot of people laughed at you when you went after the Questing Beast - and never caught it - but Piggy never laughed. She seemed to understand at once how interesting it was, and made several sensible suggestions about the way to trap it. Naturally, one did not pretend to be clever or anything, but it was nice not to be laughed at. One was doing one's best.
-- T. H. White

#Daughter #Queens #Clever

It has to be admitted that starving nations never seem to be quite so starving that they cannot afford to have far more expensive armaments than anybody else.
-- T. H. White

#Armament #Starving

My boy, you shall be everything in the world, animal, vegetable, mineral, protista, or virus, for all I care-before I have done with you-but you will have to trust my superior backsight. The time is not yet ripe for you to be a hawk... so you may as well sit down for the moment and learn to be a human being.
-- T. H. White

#Boys #Animal #Vegetables

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

#Kings #Years #May

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.
-- T. H. White

#Pain #Heart #Sea

[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

#Clever #Heart #People

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

#Confusion #Giving #Hatred