“I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which derives from abstinence; the contentment of a full belly; the richness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving of sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, quote from Arabian Sands
“Yet I wondered fancifully if he had seen more clearly than they did, had sensed the threat which my presence implied – the approaching disintegration of his society and the destruction of ‘his beliefs. Here especially it seemed that the evil that comes with sudden change would far outweigh the good. While I was with the Arabs I wished only to live as they lived and, now that I have left them, I would gladly think that nothing in their lives was altered by my coming. Regretfully, however, I realize that the maps I made helped others, with more material aims, to visit and corrupt a people whose spirit once lit the desert like a flame.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, quote from Arabian Sands
“For this was the real desert where differences of race and colour, of wealth and social standing, are almost meaningless; where coverings of pretence are stripped away and basic truths emerge.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, quote from Arabian Sands
“In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, quote from Arabian Sands
“I tasted freedom and a way of life from which there could be no recall.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, quote from Arabian Sands
“I pondered on this desert hospitality and, compared it with our own. I remembered other encampments where I had slept, small tents on which I had happened in the Syrian desert and where I had spent the night. Gaunt men in rags and hungry-looking children had greeted me, and bade me welcome with the sonorous phrases of the desert. Later they had set a great dish before me, rice heaped round a sheep which they had slaughtered, over which my host poured liquid golden butter until it flowed down on to the sand; and when I protested, saying 'Enough! Enough!', had answered that I was a hundred times welcome. Their lavish hospitality had always made me uncomfortable, for I had known that as a result of it they would go hungry for days. Yet when I left them they had almost convinced me that I had done them a kindness by staying with them”
― Wilfred Thesiger, quote from Arabian Sands
“What use will money be to him in the Sands.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, quote from Arabian Sands
“I craved for the past, resented the present, and dreaded the future.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, quote from Arabian Sands
Wilfred Thesiger
Born place: in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Born date June 3, 1910
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“From my chair, I looked out my window, over these dreadful streets.
The baby asked,
'Is there not one righteous among them?”
― James Baldwin, quote from If Beale Street Could Talk
“Maybe that's what love does - smooths the hard edges of life, giving us a gentle place to land when we fall.”
― Beth Hoffman, quote from Looking for Me
“You can speak to me like you haven’t spoken even to yourself.”
― Simona Panova, quote from Nightmarish Sacrifice
“If in doubt, make some tea.”
― Jodi Taylor, quote from Just One Damned Thing After Another
“You look good scruffy."
"Now that I know you think that, I'll never shave again."
She laughed again. "Remind me to look you up in two years to see how long your beard is."
"All you'll have to do is roll over in our bed to see that.”
― Bella Andre, quote from Kissing Under the Mistletoe
Rush
Lexicon
Fire Star
Eternal Rider
Twelve Years a Slave
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