/author/T.H.%20White

442

Speculum Majus

344

He did not notice anything particular about her, because his mind was filled with previous pictures which he had made for himself. There was no room for pictures of what she was really like. He thought of her only as the person who had robbed him, and, since robbers are deceitful, designing, and heartless people, he thought of her as these.

224

It was the unfairness of the rape of their Cornish grandmother which was hurting Gareth—the picture of weak and innocent people victimized by a resistless tyranny—the old tyranny of the Gall—which was felt like a personal wrong by every crofter of the Islands. Gareth was a generous boy. He hated the idea of strength against weakness. It made his heart swell, as if he were going to suffocate. Gawaine, on the other hand, was angry because it had been against his family. He did not think it was wrong for strength to have its way, but only that it was intensely wrong for anything to succeed against his own clan. He was neither clever nor sensitive, but he was loyal—stubbornly sometimes, and even annoyingly and stupidly so in later life. For him it was then as it was always to be: Up Orkney, Right or Wrong. The third brother, Agravaine, was moved because it was a matter which concerned his mother. He had curious feelings about her, which he kept to himself. As for Gaheris, he did and felt what the others did.

133

The earth is the Sword's and all that therein is, the compass of the bomber and they that bomb therefrom'ended with the terrific conclusion: 'Blow up your heads, O ye Gates, and be ye blown up, ye Everlasting Doors, that the King of Glory may come in. Who is the King of Glory? Even the Lord of Ghosts, He is the King of Glory.

122

When he reached the schoolroom, he found that Kay was continuing his First Rate Eddication. He was doing dictation, for as Wart opened the door he heard Merlyn pronouncing in measured tones the famous mediaeval mnemonic: 'Barabara Celarent Darii Ferioque Prioris,' and Kay saying, 'Wait a bit. My pen has gone all squee-gee.

188

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, and you would suffer for it.' 'I shouldn't mind.' 'Wouldn't you? Wait till it happens and see.' 'Why do people not think, when they are grown up, as I do when I am young?' 'Oh dear,' said Merlyn. 'You are making me feel confused. Suppose you wait till you are grown up and know the reason?' 'I don't think that is an answer at all,' replied the Wart, justly. Merlyn wrung his hands. 'Well, anyway,' he said, 'suppose they did not let you stand against all the evil in the world?' 'I could ask,' said the Wart. 'You could ask,' repeated Merlyn. He thrust the end of his beard into his mouth, stared tragically at the fire, and began to munch it fiercely.

0

Men must be ready to say: Yes, since Cain there has been injustice, but we can only set the misery right if we accept a status quo. Lands have been robbed, men slain, nations humiliated. Let us now start fresh without remembrance, rather than live forward and backward at the same time. We cannot build the future by avenging the past.

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The Queen dried her tears and looked at him, smiling like a spring shower. In a minute they were kissing, feeling like the green earth refreshed by rain. They thought that they understood each other once more - but their doubt had been planted. Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing a the same time: for love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury.

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Although nine tenths of [this] story seems to be about knights jousting and quests for the holy grail and things of that sort, the narrative is a whole, and it deals with the reasons why the young man came to grief at the end. It is the tragedy, the Aristotelian and comprehensive tragedy, of sin coming home to roost. That why we have to take note of the parentage of Arthur's son Mordred, and to remember, when the time comes, that the king had slept with his own sister. He did not know he was doing so, and perhaps it may have been due to her, but it seems in tragedy, that innocence is not enough.

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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 this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ. Perhaps we may assume that Jesus knew as much as the Austrian did about saving people, but the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into storm troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people.

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There is no excuse for war, none whatever, and whatever the wrong which your nation might be doing to mine - short of war - my nation would be in the wrong if it started a war so as to redress it. A murderer, for instance, is not allowed to plead that his victim was rich and oppressing him - so why should a nation be allowed to? Wrongs have to be redressed by reason, not by force.

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The best thing for being sad 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 - 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.

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Sometimes, life does seem to be unfair. Do you know the story of Elijah and the Rabbi Jachanan? This Rabbi went on a journey with the prophet Elijah. They walked all day, and at nightfall they came to the humble cottage of a poor man, whose only treasure was a cow. The poor man ran out of his cottage and his wife ran too, to welcome the strangers for the night and to offer them all the simple hospitality which they were able to give in strained circumstances. Elijah and the Rabbi were entertained with plenty of the cow's milk, sustained by home-made bread and butter, and they were put to sleep in the best bed while their kindly hosts lay down before the kitchen fire. But in the morning, the poor man's cow was dead.\n\n 'They walked all the next day, and came that evening to the house of a very wealthy merchant, whose hospitality they craved. The merchant was cold and proud and rich, and all that he would do for the prophet and his companion was to lodge them in a cowshed and feed them on bread and water. In the morning, however, Elijah thanked him very much for what he had done, and sent for a mason to repair one of his walls, which happened to be falling down, as a return for his kindess.\n\n 'The Rabbi Jachanan, unable to keep silence any longer, begged the holy man to explain the meaning of his dealings with human beings. 'In regard to the poor man who received us so hospitably,' replied the prophet, 'it was decreed that his wife was to die that night, but in reward for his goodness God took the cow instead of the wife. I repaired the wall of the rich miser because a chest of gold was concealed near the place, and if the miser had repaired the wall himself he would have discovered the treasure. Say not therefore to the Lord: 'What doest thou?' But say in thy heart: 'Must not the Lord of all the earth do right?

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

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After every war, all the officials on the losing side who held a higher rank than colonel ought to be executed out of hand, irrespective of their war-guilt. No doubt there would be a certain amount of injustice in this measure, but the consciousness that death was the certain result of losing a war would have a deterrent effect on those who help to promote and to regulate such engagements, and it might, by preventing a few wars, save millions of lives among the lower classes. [However], it seems less reasonable than it seems, partly because the responsibility for warfare does not lie wholly with the leaders. After all, a leader has to be chosen or accepted by those who he leads. The hydra-headed multitudes are not so innocent as they like to pretend.

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Marx was a bad naturalist because he...subscribed to the Égalité Fallacy, which is abhorrent to nature. Human beings are no more equal in their merits and abilities than they are equal in face and stature. You might just as well insist that all the people in the world should wear the same size of boot.

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Neither force, nor argument, nor opinion are thinking. Argument is only a display of mental force, a sort of fencing with points in order to gain a victory, not for truth. Opinions are the blind alleys of lazy or of stupid men, who are unable to think. Opinion can never stand beside truth.

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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 for rejected freely, and there is a faint hope of progress in the course of the millennia. Such is the business of the philosopher, to open new ideas. It is not his business to impose them on people.

18 quotes by T.H. White