T. H. White Quotes

Cavall came simply, and gave him his heart and soul.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

We cannot build the future by avenging the past.

The best thing for being sad, is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails ... Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.

It seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough.

a king can only work with his best tools.

Unfortunately we have tried to establish Right by Might, and you can 't do that.

Only fools want to be great.

But they woke him with words, their cruel bright weapons.

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

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

It was called a tribute before a battle and a ransom afterwards.

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.

You think education is something to be done when all else fails?

Dogs, like very small children, are quite mad.

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.

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.

The best thing for being sad ... is to learn something.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Were they, for some purpose almost too cunning for belief, only disguised as themselves?

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.

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?

If there is one thing I can't stand, it is stupidity. I always say that stupidity is the Sin against the Holy Ghost.

The fisherman fishes as the urchin eats cream buns, from lust.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

People commit suicide through weakness, not through strength.

If people reach perfection they vanish, you know.

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.

The destiny of man is an individualistic destiny.

Those who lived by the sword were forced to die by it.