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Arthur was not one of those interesting characters whose subtle motives can be dissected. He was only a simple and affectionate man, because Merlyn had believed that love and simplicity were worth having. -- T.h. White
The destiny of all species is extinction as such, fortunately for them. -- T.h. White
The eyes, circled by this sad and beautiful darkness, were so sorrowful, lonely, gentle and nobly tragic, that they killed all other emotion except love. -- T.h. White
Elaine had done the ungraceful thing as usual. Guenever, in similar circumstances, would have been sure to grow pale and interesting - but Elaine had only grown plump. -- T.h. White
It is only the people who are lacking, or bad, or inferior, who have to be good at things. -- T.h. White
It seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough. -- T.h. White
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
The snow-haired Uncle Dap, so old as to be absolutely fabulous, was trying to jump over his walking-stick. -- T.h. White
The author says people are guilty of wrecking the present because the future was bound to be a wreck. -- T.h. White
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
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. -- T.h. White
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
It was at the outskirts of the world that the Old Things accumulated, like driftwood round the edges of the sea. ("The Troll") -- T.h. White
He was neither clever nor sensitive, but he was loyal
stubbornly sometimes, and even annoyingly and stupidly so in later life. -- T.h. White
At this the Wart's eyes grew rounder and rounder, until they were about as big as the owl's who was sitting on his shoulder, and his face got redder and redder, and a breath seemed to gather itself beneath his heart. -- T.h. White
For in those days love was ruled by a different convention to ours. In those days it was chivalrous, adult, long, religious, almost platonic. It was not a matter about which you could make accusations lightly. It was not, as we take it to be nowadays, begun and ended in a long week-end. -- T.h. White
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
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. -- T.h. White
Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit of comforting themselves for their degradation by pretending that children are childish. -- T.h. White
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
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
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
It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible. -- T.h. White
I suppose one has to be desperate, to be a successful writer. One has to reach a rock-bottom at which one can afford to let everything go hang. One has got to damn the public, chance one's living, say what one thinks, and be oneself. Then something may come out. -- T.h. White
Unfortunately we have tried to establish Right by Might, and you just can't do that -- T.h. White
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
Middle-aged people can balance between believing in God and breaking all the commandments without difficulty. -- T.h. White
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
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
Even his conversation was, as it were, a spoken part. -- T.h. White
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
People will do the basest things on account of their so-called honor. -- T.h. White
God is love, the bishops tell.
Yes, I know, But love is hell. -- T.h. White
You run a grave risk, my boy," said the magician, "of being turned into a piece of bread, and toasted. -- T.h. White
God save King Pendragon,
May his reign long drag on,
God save the King.
Send him most gorious,
Great and uproarious,
Horrible and hoarious,
God save our King. -- T.h. White
He began to see why Merlyn had always clowned on purpose. It had been a means of helping people to learn in a happy way. -- T.h. White
In war, our elders may give the orders ... but it is the young who have to fight. -- T.h. White
And do you know another thing, Arthur? Life is too bitter already, without territories and wars and noble feuds. -- T.h. White
Wart draggled off to the tower room, where Merlyn was busy knitting himself a woollen night-cap for the winter. "I cast off two together at every other line," said the magician, "but for some reason it seems to end too sharply. Like an onion. It is the turning of the heel that does one, every time. -- T.h. White
I know hardly anything about Galahad except that everybody dislikes him."
"Dislikes him?"
"They complain about him being inhuman."
Lancelot considered his cup.
"He is inhuman," he said at last. "But why should he be human? Are angels supposed to be human? -- T.h. White
Yes Wart' said Merlyn 'Or rather, as I should say (or is it have I said?), Yes, King Arthur -- T.h. White
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
Queen Morgause," said Gwenever thoughtfully, "must have been a strange person. -- T.h. White
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
a king can only work with his best tools. -- T.h. White
He may even have felt that God needed him more than Guenever did. -- T.h. White
Kings can only use their best tools. -- T.h. White
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
Who said that?" asked Sir Grummore.
"But the sword said it, like I tell you."
"Talkative weapon," remarked Sir Grummore skeptically. -- T.h. White
How condescending, how splendidly democratic of Sir Lancelot, to laugh, as if he were an ordinary man! Perhaps he eats and drinks as well, or even sleeps at night. -- T.h. White
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
It happened like this in the world. Old things lost their grip and dropped away; not always because they were bad things, but sometimes because the new things were more bad, and stronger. -- T.h. White
You think education is something to be done when all else fails? -- T.h. White
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
Thank God for the aged And for age itself, and illness and the grave. When we are old and ill, and particularly in the coffin, It is no trouble to behave. -- T.h. White
Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically
to those who hardly think about us in return. -- T.h. White
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
You have become the king of a domain in which the popular agitators hate each other for racial reasons, while the nobility fight each other for fun, and neither the racial maniac nor the overlord stops to consider the lot of the common soldier, who is the one person that gets hurt. -- T.h. White
If people reach perfection they vanish, you know. -- T.h. White
Wherever they went and wherever they slept, the east wind whistled in the reeds, and the geese went over high in the starlight, honking at the stars. -- T.h. White
I can see that you spoke in ignorance, and I bitterly regret that I should have been so petty as to take offence where none was intended. -- T.h. White
How can you have boundaries if you fly? Those ants of yours - and the humans too - would have to stop fighting in the end, if they took to the air." "I like fighting," said the Wart. "It is knightly." "Because you're a baby. -- T.h. White
God is love, the parson whined.
Yes, and is he also blind? -- T.h. White
Mordred and Agravaine thought Arthur hypocritical - as all decent men must be, if you assume that decency can't exist. -- T.h. White
We have had a good time while we were young, but it is in the nature of Time to fly. -- T.h. White
Long ago, when I had my Merlyn to help, he tried to teach me to think. He knew he would have to leave in the end, so he forced me to think for myself. Don't ever let anybody teach you to think, Lance: it is the curse of the world. -- T.h. White
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
Any one war seems rooted in its antecedents. -- T.h. White
People are dupes, and wicked too. That is what makes it interesting to get them better. -- T.h. White
Aviators live by hours, not by days. -- T.h. White
Everybody is always saying what a parfit, gentle knight I am, but it has nothing to do with me. It is Arthur's idea. It is what he has wished on all the younger generation, like Gareth, and now it is fashionable. -- T.h. White
Gawaine and Gareth took turns with the fat ass, one of them whacking it while the other rode bareback. -- T.h. White
But his heart had been made as a match for Elaine's, and now it was unable to bear the burden which hers had been forced to lay down. -- T.h. White
It was a grey September day, with the blue and copper butterflies flitting in the after-grass, the partridges calling like crickets, the blackberries colouring, and the hazel nuts still nursing their tasteless little kernels in the cradles of cotton wool. -- T.h. White
All endeavours which are directed to a purely worldly end ... contain within themselves the germs of their own corruption. -- T.h. White
It is generally the trustful and optimistic people who can afford to retreat. The loveless and faithless ones are compelled by their pessimism to attack. -- T.h. White
Leave well alone. -- T.h. White
Nobody can be saved from anything, unless they save themselves. -- T.h. White
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
We cannot build the future by avenging the past. -- T.h. White
The bravest people are the ones who don't mind looking like cowards. -- T.h. White
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
Were they, for some purpose almost too cunning for belief, only disguised as themselves? -- T.h. White
Ought to be havin' a first-rate eddication, at their age. When I was their age I was doin' all this Latin and stuff -- T.h. White
After several minutes [Wart] said, "Is one allowed to speak as a human being, or does the thing about being seen and not heard have to apply? -- T.h. White
An ordinary fellow, who did not spend half his life torturing himself by trying to discover what was right so as to conquer his inclination towards what was wrong, might have cut the knot which brought their ruin. -- T.h. White
The only way I can keep clear of force is by justice. Far from being willing to execute his enemies, a real king must be willing to execute his friends. -- T.h. White
It was called a tribute before a battle and a ransom afterwards. -- T.h. White
In the course of a long experience of the human race, I have learned that you can never make them understand anything, unless you rub it in. -- T.h. White
Their mother is Athene, the goddess of wisdom, and, although they are often ready to play the buffoon to amuse you, such conduct is the prerogative of the truly wise. -- T.h. White
But they woke him with words, their cruel bright weapons. -- T.h. White
The Victorians had not been anxious to go away for the weekend. The Edwardians, on the contrary, were nomadic. -- T.h. White
War is like a fire, Agnes. One man may start it, but it will spread all over. It is not about any one thing in particular. -- T.h. White
My trouble is that my intelligence is materialistic, agnostic, pessimistic and solitary, while my heart is incurably tender, romantic, loving and gregarious. -- T.h. White
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
In going to sleep he had learned to vanquish light, and now the light could not rewake him. -- T.h. White
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
Do you think that they, with their Battles, Famine, Black Death and Serfdom, were less enlightened than we are, with our Wars, Blockade, Influenza, and Conscription. -- T.h. White
Hic jacet Arthurus Rex quandam Rexque futurus - the once and future king. -- T.h. White
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
Dogs, like very small children, are quite mad. -- T.h. White
The poor fellow had never been cut out to be a villain. -- T.h. White
I don't think things ought to be done because you are able to do them. I think they should be done because you ought to do them. -- T.h. White
[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
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
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
Education is experience and experience is self-reliance. -- T.h. White
All forms of collectivism are mistaken, according to the human skull. -- T.h. White
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
He could do what all men wanted to, that is, fly -- T.h. White
It is difficult to write about a real person. -- T.h. White
He knew suddenly that nobody, living upon the remotest, most barren crag in the ocean, could complain of a dull landscape so long as he would lift his eyes. In the sky there was a new landscape every minute, in every pool of the sea rocks, a new world. -- T.h. White
Everything not forbidden is compulsory -- T.h. White
The best thing for being sad ... is to learn something. -- T.h. White
It is the bad people who need to have principles to restrain them. -- T.h. White
Thy sorrow will come from thine own mouth. -- T.h. White
True warfare is rarer in Nature than cannibalism. -- T.h. White
Only fools want to be great. -- T.h. White
No, I'm not." "Yes, you are." "No, I'm not." "Yes, you are." "I said Pax Non." "You said Pax." "No, I didn't." "Yes, you did." "No, I didn't." "Yes, you did. -- T.h. White
It is good to put your life in other people's hands. -- T.h. White
So Merlyn sent you to me," said the badger, "to finish your education. Well, I can only teach you two things
to dig, and love your home. These are the true end of philosophy. -- T.h. White
I don't think you can very well give people as presents: they might not like it. -- T.h. White
So little time to pass? said Merlyn, and a big tear ran down to the end of his nose. -- T.h. White
One more try,' he asked, 'We are not quite done.' 'What is the use of trying?' 'It is a thing which people do. -- T.h. White
He fancied himself on his humanity towards animals, as so many people do who are inhuman to their fellow men ... -- T.h. White
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
Nobody can be too careful about their habits of speech. -- T.h. White
when a moral sense begins to rot it is worse than when you had none. -- T.h. White
I think I ought to have some eddication,"said the Wart, "I can't think of anything to do. -- T.h. White
Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance. -- T.h. White
The increasingly cynical court thought Arthur, hypocritical, as all decent men must be if you assume decency cannot exist. -- T.h. White
People commit suicide through weakness, not through strength. -- T.h. White
The destiny of man is an individualistic destiny. -- T.h. White
Merlyn always said that sportsmanship was the curse of the world, and so it is. -- T.h. White
I am an anarchist, like any other sensible person.
~ Merlyn -- T.h. White
made of stone. It had no windows and only one door, through which you had to crawl. -- T.h. White
Wars are never fought for one reason," he said. "They are fought for dozens of reasons, in a muddle. -- T.h. White
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
He felt in his heart cruelty and cowardice, the things which made him brave and kind. -- T.h. White
Who doth ambition shun And loves to lie in the sun, Seeking the food he eats And pleased with what he gets, -- T.h. White
The fisherman fishes as the urchin eats cream buns, from lust. -- T.h. White
He had conquered murder only to be faced with war. There were no laws for that. -- T.h. White
Might does not make right! Right makes right! -- T.h. White
Cavall came simply and gave his heart and soul. -- T.h. White
Those who lived by the sword were forced to die by it. -- T.h. White
Wrongs have to be redressed by reason, not by force. -- T.h. White
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
When Other blood spurts from the knife, Then everything is fine. -- T.h. White
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