Compelling passages, notable quotables, bon mots, disjecta, ephemera, and miscellany. Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. For years we lived anyhow with another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven. By day the hot sun fermented us; and we were dizzied by the beating wind. At night we were stained by dew, and shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of stars. We were a self-centred army without parade or gesture, devoted to freedom, the second of man’s creeds, a purpose so ravenous that it devoured all our strength, a hope … Continue reading Commonplace Book: T.E. Lawrence on Arab zeal