Biography pages:
Who was 'Lawrence of Arabia'
Introductory biography
T. E.
Lawrence as writer
Chronology of Lawrence's life
FAQs
Reference
Maps
Memorials to Lawrence
Some quotations
T. E. Lawrence manuscripts
Books dedicated to Lawrence
Research and discussion
The
state of T.E. Lawrence scholarship
Rejected
legend
David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia
Other
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Jeremy
Wilson
Page updated May 2012
Quotations
We are often asked the source of Lawrence quotations. Here are some of the most frequent.
Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.
'Twenty-Seven
Articles', Arab Bulletin, 20 August 1917
Complete text >>>
All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Suppressed introductory chapter, first published 1939
Complete chapter
>>>
You wonder what I am doing? Well, so do I, in truth. Days seem to dawn, suns to shine, evenings to follow, and then I sleep. What I have done, what I am doing, what I am going to do, puzzle and bewilder me. Have you ever been a leaf and fallen from your tree in autumn and been really puzzled about it? That's the feeling.
Letter to Eric Kennington, 6 May 1935
Complete letter
>>>
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom
The opening lines of the dedication to Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Complete dedication
>>>
Letter to Eric Kennington, 27 October 1922
Complete Letter
>>>
T. E. Lawrence chronology
1888 16 August: born at Tremadoc, Wales
1896-1907: City of Oxford High School for Boys
1907-9: Jesus College, Oxford, B.A., 1st Class Hons, 1909
1910-14: Magdalen College, Oxford (Senior Demy), while working at the British Museum's excavations at Carchemish
1915-16: Military Intelligence Dept, Cairo
1916-18: Liaison Officer with the Arab Revolt
1919: Attended the Paris Peace Conference
1919-22: wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1921-2: Adviser on Arab Affairs to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office
1922 August: Enlisted in the Ranks of the RAF
1923 January: discharged from the RAF
1923 March: enlisted in the Tank Corps
1923: translated a French novel, The Forest Giant
1924-6: prepared the subscribers' abridgement of Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1927-8: stationed at Karachi, then Miranshah
1927 March: Revolt in the Desert, an abridgement of Seven Pillars, published
1928: completed The Mint, began translating Homer's Odyssey
1929-33: stationed at Plymouth
1931: started working on RAF boats
1932: his translation of the Odyssey published
1933-5: attached to MAEE, Felixstowe
1935 February: retired from the RAF
1935 19 May: died from injuries received in a motor-cycle crash on 13 May
1935 21 May: buried at Moreton, Dorset