Thesiger Wilfred Quotes & Sayings

No man can live this life and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the brand which marks the nomad; and he will have within him the yearning to return, weak or insistent according to his nature. For this cruel land can cast a spell which no temperate clime can match. — Wilfred Thesiger

As I listened I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu. Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control. It was impossible for them to provide for a morrow when everything depended on a chance fall of rain or when raiders, sickness, or any one of a hundred chance happenings might at any time leave them destitute, or end their lives. They did what they could, and no people were more self-reliant, but if things went wrong they accepted their fate without bitterness, and with dignity as the will of God. — Wilfred Thesiger

For me, exploration was a personal venture. I did not go to the Arabian desert to collect plants nor to make a map; such things were incidental. At heart I knew that to write or even to talk of my travels was to tarnish the achievement. I went there to find peace in the hardship of desert travel and the company of desert peoples. I set myself a goal on these journeys, and, although the goal itself was unimportant, its attainment had to be worth every effort and sacrifice ... No, it is not the goal but the way there that matters, and the harder the way the more worth while the journey. — Wilfred Thesiger

I tasted freedom and a way of life from which there could be no recall. — Wilfred Thesiger

For years, I meant to read 'Arabian Sands', Wilfred Thesiger's account of two punishing camel journeys during the late 1940s across Southern Arabia's Empty Quarter. Now that I have, I can sheepishly join the chorus of those who revere the book as one of the half dozen greatest works of modern English travel writing. — Michael Dirda

The meat smelt rank and was very tough, the soup was greasy and of a curious flavour, but it was a wonderful meal after all these hungry weeks. — Wilfred Thesiger

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

The choice to have a great attitude is something that nobody or no circumstance can take from you. — Zig Ziglar

Bedu notice everything and forget nothing. Garrulous by nature, they reminisce endlessly, whiling away with the chatter the long marching hours, and talking late into the night round their camp fires. Their life is at all times desperately hard, and they are merciless critics of those who fall short in patience, good humour, generosity, loyalty, or courage. They make no allowance for the stranger. Whoever lives with the Bedu must accept Bedu conventions, and conform to Bedu standards. Only those who have journeyed with them them can appreciate the strain of such a life. — Wilfred Thesiger

From the first I became convinced that what I must look for was lead dust and lead fumes, that men were poisoned by breathing poisoned air, not by handling their food with unwashed hands. — Alice Hamilton

The harder the life, the finer the person — Wilfred Thesiger

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. I had found too, a comradeship inherent in the circumstances, and the belief that tranquility was to be found there. — Wilfred Thesiger

Many Englishmen have written about camels. When I open a book and see the familiar disparagement, the well-worn humour, I realize that the author's knowledge of them is slight, that he has never lived among the Bedu, who know the camel's worth: 'Ata Allah', or 'God's gift', they call her, and it is her patience that wins the Arab's heart. I have never seen a Bedu strike or ill-treat a camel. Always the camel's needs come first. It is not only that the Bedu's existence depends upon the welfare of his animals, but that he has a real affection for them. — Wilfred Thesiger

Loving another person is a wonderful thing, and if that love is sincere, no one ends up tossed into a labyrinth. You have to have more faith in yourself. — Haruki Murakami

I craved for the past, resented the present, and dreaded the future. — Wilfred Thesiger

I knew that I had made my last journey in the Empty Quarter and that a phase in my life was ended. Here in the desert I found all that I asked; I knew that I should never find it again. But it was not only this personal sorrow that distressed me. I realized that the Bedu with whom I had lived and traveled, and in whose company I had found contentment, were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe. I shall always remember how often I was humbled by those illiterate herdsmen who possessed, in so much greater measure than I, generosity and courage, endurance, patience and lighthearted gallantry. Among no other people have I ever felt the same sense of personal inferiority. — Wilfred Thesiger

Don't let your silly dreams fall in between the crack of the bed and the wall. — Jim James

For many societies, the journey to modernity has been painful and costly. — Elliott Abrams

I always thought I had a problem socially, because I was pulled out of school so early. I had a tough time talking to other kids and being comfortable with them. — Ricky Schroder

The deserts in which I have travelled had been blanks in time as well as space. They had no intelligible history, the nomads who inhabited them had no known past. — Wilfred Thesiger

You would better educate ten women into the practice of liberal principles than to organize a thousand on a platform of intolerance and bigotry. — Susan B. Anthony

My mom was a dancer, my dad's a singer and I've always had that kind of music in my life. — Elvis Stojko

How do you come back? It's one step at a time. I'm optimistic because I don't know what else to be. — Paula Poundstone

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

When it comes to professionalism, it makes sense to talk about being professional in IT. Standards are vital so that IT professionals can provide systems that last. — Tim Berners-Lee

Our modern, rootless times do seem to be a particularly inhospitable environment for loyalty. We come and go so relentlessly that our friendships can't but come and go too. What sort of loyalty is there in the age of Facebook, when friendship is a costless transaction, a business of flip reciprocity ... Friendship held together by nothing more permanent than hyperlinks is hardly the stuff of selfless fidelity. — Eric Felten

I knew instinctively that it was the very hardness of life in the desert which drew me back there - it was the same pull which takes men back to the polar ice, to high mountains, and to the sea. — Wilfred Thesiger

What use will money be to him in the Sands. — Wilfred Thesiger

Hunger, thirst, heat and cold: I had tasted them in full — Wilfred Thesiger

If you're religious or not, the world and society lacks as much of community spirit as it had. — Luke Pritchard

His hormones never calmed down once they set in when he was a teenager.""Yeah, we've considered getting him neutered," Nathan adds,a goading tone to his voice.I see Nathan and Sol share a look,then Sol says,"Sorry, when did you last get laid, Nate? Oh yeah, about a year ago." He smiles smugly. "Me, you ask? Oh well, I got some yesterday. — Samantha Towle

For the first thing a writer should be is - excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it would be better for his health. — Ray Bradbury

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