Lawrence of Arabia Quotes

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

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
T.E. Lawrence : 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.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Jackson Bentley : Never saw a man killed with a sword before.
T.E. Lawrence : [ contemptuously ] Why don't you take a picture?
Jackson Bentley : Wish I had.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
T.E. Lawrence : It's my manner, sir.
General Murray : Your manner?
T.E. Lawrence : Yes. It looks insubordinate, but it isn't really.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
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.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Prince Feisal : Gasim's time has come, Lawrence. It is written.
T.E. Lawrence : Nothing is written.
Sherif Ali : You will not be at Aqaba, English! Go back, blasphemer... but you will not be at Aqaba!
T.E. Lawrence : I shall be at Aqaba. That, IS written. [ pointing to forehead ]
T.E. Lawrence : In here.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Sherif Ali : Truly, for some men nothing is written unless THEY write it.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Prince Feisal : No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Prince Feisal : 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.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
T.E. Lawrence : 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!

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Sherif Ali : Does it surprise you, Mr Bentley? Surely, you know the Arabs are a barbarous people. Barbarous and cruel. Who but they! Who but they!

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
T.E. Lawrence : No prisoners! No prisoners!

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
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. Cross my heart and hope to die, it's all perfectly true.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
T.E. Lawrence : The truth is: I'm an ordinary man. You might've told me that, Dryden.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Jackson Bentley : What attracts you personally to the desert?
T.E. Lawrence : It's clean.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
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.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
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.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Prince Feisal : But you know, Lieutenant, in the Arab city of Cordoba were two miles of public lighting in the streets when London was a village?
T.E. Lawrence : Yes, you were great.
Prince Feisal : Nine centuries ago.
T.E. Lawrence : Time to be great again, my lord.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Prince Feisal : Well, General, I will leave you. Major Lawrence doubtless has reports to make upon my people and their weakness, and the need to keep them weak in the British interest... and the French interest too, of course. We must not forget the French now...
General Allenby : [ indignantly ] I've told you, sir, no such treaty exists.
Prince Feisal : Yes, General, you have lied most bravely, but not convincingly. I know this treaty does exist.
T.E. Lawrence : Treaty, sir?
Prince Feisal : He does it better than you, General. But then, of course, he is almost an Arab.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
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.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Prince Feisal : You, I suspect, are chief architect of this compromise. What do you think?
Mr. Dryden : Me, your Highness? On the whole, I wish I'd stayed in Tunbridge Wells.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
T.E. Lawrence : The best of them won't come for money; they'll come for me.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Auda abu Tayi : It is Auda of the Howitat who speaks.
Sherif Ali : It is Ali of the Harith who answers.
Auda abu Tayi : Harith! Ali, does your father still steal?
Sherif Ali : No. Does Auda take me for one of his own bastards?
Auda abu Tayi : No, there is no resemblance. Alas, you resemble your father.
Sherif Ali : Auda flatters me.
Auda abu Tayi : You're easily flattered. I knew your father well.
Sherif Ali : Did you know your own?

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
T.E. Lawrence : The Law says the man must die... If he dies, would that content the Howitat?
Auda abu Tayi : Yes.
T.E. Lawrence : Sherif Ali. If none of lord Auda's men harms any of yours, will that content the Harith?
Sherif Ali : Yes.
T.E. Lawrence : Then I will execute the Law. I have no tribe and no one is offended.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
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.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
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.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Prince Feisal : 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.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
Turkish Bey : I have been stationed in Dara for three and a half years. If I were posted to the dark side of the moon I could not be more isolated. You don't have the slightest idea what I'm talking about, do you?
T.E. Lawrence : No, effendi.
Turkish Bey : Do you? No. That would be too... lucky.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
[ regarding the bullet wound on Lawrence's arm ]
Turkish Bey : Where did you get this wound?
T.E. Lawrence : That is old, effendi.
Turkish Bey : No, it is recent. You are a deserter. But from which army? Not that it matters at all. A man can't always be in uniform.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia
T.E. Lawrence : There may be honor among thieves, but there's none in politicians.

Movie: Lawrence of Arabia