Lawrence of Arabia Quotes

Best Lawrence of Arabia Movie Quotes

Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia  image

Directed by: David Lean
Written by: T.E. Lawrence , Robert Bolt
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn
Released on: December 11, 1962
Taglines: The Desert Classic.

Lawrence of Arabia Quotes

Sherif Ali: Have you no fear, English?
T.E. Lawrence: My fear is my concern. image

Sherif Ali: Have you no fear, English?
T.E. Lawrence: My fear is my concern.

No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing. image

No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing.

There may be honor among thieves, but there's none in politicians. image

There may be honor among thieves, but there's none in politicians.

General Allenby: I've got orders to obey, thank God. Not like that poor devil. He's riding the whirlwind.
Mr. Dryden: Let's hope we're not.

Make God your agent!... Aqaba! image

Make God your agent!... Aqaba!

Being an Arab will be thornier than you suppose, Harith! image

Being an Arab will be thornier than you suppose, Harith!

And I must do it because the Turks have European guns. But I fear to do it. Upon my soul I do. The English have a great hunger for desolate places. I fear they hunger for Arabia. image

And I must do it because the Turks have European guns. But I fear to do it. Upon my soul I do. The English have a great hunger for desolate places. I fear they hunger for Arabia.

There's nothing further here for a warrior. We drive bargains. Old men's work. Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men. Courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace. And the vices of peace are the vices of old men. Mistrust and caution. It must be so. image

There's nothing further here for a warrior. We drive bargains. Old men's work. Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men. Courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace. And the vices of peace are the vices of old men. Mistrust and caution. It must be so.

Do you think I'm just anybody, Ali? Do you? image

Do you think I'm just anybody, Ali? Do you?

A thousand Arabs means a thousand knives, delivered anywhere day or night. It means a thousand camels. That means a thousand packs of high explosives and a thousand crack rifles. We can cross Arabia while Johnny Turk is still turning round, and smash his railways. And while he's mending them, I'll smash them somewhere else. In thirteen weeks, I can have Arabia in chaos. image

A thousand Arabs means a thousand knives, delivered anywhere day or night. It means a thousand camels. That means a thousand packs of high explosives and a thousand crack rifles. We can cross Arabia while Johnny Turk is still turning round, and smash his railways. And while he's mending them, I'll smash them somewhere else. In thirteen weeks, I can have Arabia in chaos.

The best of them won't come for money; they'll come for me. image

The best of them won't come for money; they'll come for me.

Mr. Dryden: Lawrence, only two kinds of creature get fun in the desert: Bedouins and gods, and you're neither. Take it from me, for ordinary men, it's a burning, fiery furnace.
T.E. Lawrence: No, Dryden, it's going to be fun.
Mr. Dryden: It is recognized that you have a funny sense of fun. image

Mr. Dryden: Lawrence, only two kinds of creature get fun in the desert: Bedouins and gods, and you're neither. Take it from me, for ordinary men, it's a burning, fiery furnace.
T.E. Lawrence: No, Dryden, it's going to be fun.
Mr. Dryden: It is recognized that you have a funny sense of fun.

Undisciplined... unpunctual... untidy. Knowledge of music... knowledge of literature... knowledge of... knowledge of... you're an interesting man there's no doubt about it.

Jackson Bentley: What is it, Major Lawrence, that attracts you personally to the desert?
T.E. Lawrence: It's clean.

The desert has dried up more blood than you can think of.

There is only the desert for you.

T.E. Lawrence: I killed two people. One was... yesterday? He was just a boy and I led him into quicksand. The other was... well, before Aqaba. I had to execute him with my pistol, and there was something about it that I didn't like.
General Allenby: That's to be expected.
T.E. Lawrence: No, something else.
General Allenby: Well, then let it be a lesson.
T.E. Lawrence: No... something else.
General Allenby: What then?
T.E. Lawrence: I enjoyed it.

Colonel Brighton: Look, sir, we can't just do nothing.
General Allenby: Why not? It's usually best.

General Allenby: I thought I was a hard man, sir.
Prince Feisal: You are merely a general. I must be a king.

General Allenby: You acted without orders, you know.
T.E. Lawrence: Shouldn't officers use their initiative at all times?
General Allenby: Not really. It's awfully dangerous.

Thine mother mated with a scorpion.

Prince Feisal: My friend Lawrence, if I may call him that. "My friend Lawrence". How many men will claim the right to use that phrase? How proudly! He longs for the greenness of his native land. He pines for the Gothic cottages of Surrey, is it not? Already in imagination, he catches trout and engages in all the activities of the English gentleman.
General Allenby: That's me you're describing, sir, not Colonel Lawrence.

General Allenby: I believe your name will be a household word when you'll have to go to the War Museum to find who Allenby was. You're the most extraordinary man I've ever met!
T.E. Lawrence: Leave me alone!
General Allenby: What?
T.E. Lawrence: Leave me alone!
General Allenby: Well, that's a feeble thing to say.
T.E. Lawrence: I know I'm not ordinary.
General Allenby: That's not what I'm saying...
T.E. Lawrence: All right! I'm extraordinary! What of it?

William Potter: Ooh! It damn well 'urts!
T.E. Lawrence: Certainly it hurts.
Officer: What's the trick then?
T.E. Lawrence: The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.

Mr. Dryden: Well. It seems we're to have a British waterworks with an Arab flag on it. Do you think it was worth it?
General Allenby: Not my business. Thank God I'm a soldier.
Mr. Dryden: Yes, sir. So you keep saying.

General Allenby: I fight like Clausewitz, then you fight like Saxe!
T.E. Lawrence: We should do very well, then, shouldn't we?

General Allenby: I'm promoting you Major.
T.E. Lawrence: I don't think that's a very good idea.

Prince Feisal: Ah yes, then Lawrence is a sword with two edges... we are equally glad to be rid of him are we not?
General Allenby: I thought I was a hard man, sir.
Prince Feisal: You are merely a General... I must be a king.

General Allenby: Not many people have a destiny Lawrence. It's a terrible thing for a man to funk it if he has.
T.E. Lawrence: You're speaking from experience?
General Allenby: No.
T.E. Lawrence: You're guessing then.

Sherif Ali: I do not understand this. Your father's name is Chapman...
T.E. Lawrence: Ali, he didn't marry my mother.
Sherif Ali: I see.
T.E. Lawrence: I'm sorry.
Sherif Ali: It seems to me that you are free to choose your own name, then.

Club Secretary: I say, Lawrence. You are a clown!
T.E. Lawrence: Ah, well, we can't all be lion tamers.

What I owe you is beyond evaluation.

Colonel Brighton: Are you badly hurt?
T.E. Lawrence: I'm not hurt at all. Didn't you know? They can only kill me with a golden bullet.

Which is why my father made this war upon the Turks. My father, Mr Lawrence, not the English. But my father is old and I... I long for the vanished gardens of Cordoba. However, before the gardens must come the fighting.

With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion. With me, it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable.

So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.

Cross my heart and hope to die, it's all perfectly true.

Sherif Ali: What is your name?
T.E. Lawrence: My name is for my friends. None of my friends is a murderer!

T.E. Lawrence: No, they're still there, but they've no boots. Prisoners, sir. We took them prisoners; the entire garrison. No, that's not true. We killed some; too many, really. I'll manage it better next time. There's been a lot of killing, one way or another.
T.E. Lawrence: Cross my heart and hope to die, it's all perfectly true.

Tafas: Is that a desert country?
T.E. Lawrence: No: a fat country. Fat people.
Tafas: You are not fat?
T.E. Lawrence: No. I'm different.

My lord, I think... I think your book is right. 'The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped' and on this ocean the Bedu go where they please and strike where they please. This is the way the Bedu have always fought. You're famed throughout the world for fighting in this way and this is the way you should fight now!

The truth is: I'm an ordinary man. You might've told me that, Dryden.

I cannot fiddle but I can make a great state of a small city.

No prisoners! No prisoners!

I pray that I may never see the desert again. Hear me, God.

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