Thomas Edward Lawrence, 1888 - 1935
British Army file photo (1915)
Born: 16 August 1888, Tremadog, Caernarfonshire, North Wales, UK
Died: 19 May 1935, Bovington Camp, Dorset, England, UK
Lawrence was the illegitimate son of Thomas Chapman and Sarah Junner. Junner herself was illegitimate, and styled herself "Miss Lawrence". Chapman and Junner had five sons in all, without marriage, and presented themselves as "Mr and Mrs Lawrence", hence the name. "Ned" attended the City of Oxford High School for Boys and in 1907 entered Jesus College, Oxford, graduation in 1910. During two summers he toured France by bicycle, studying medieval castles, and the third summer he spent three months walking a thousand miles studying crusader castles in Syria. He began post-graduate work at Magdalen College, Oxford but left to work on digs in Syria and Egypt. In 1914 the British asked Lawrence and a colleague to work on a military survey of the Negev Desert, under the guise of an archaeological survey. Six months after the war broke out, Lawrence enlisted in the British Army. The Foreign Office devised a plan to encourage an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks, and enlisted Lawrence to lead what is now called an "asymmetric" war in the desert. Donning Bedouin dress, "Lawrence of Arabia" led surprise raids that caught the Turks by surprise, constantly blew up their railroads, captured Aqaba, and was involved in the fall of Damascus, ending the campaign with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and attracting a great deal of attention in England. After the war he worked for the Foreign Office and was an advisor to Winston Churchill in the Colonial Office.
When the British signed a treaty with France that he felt broke commitments to the Arabs, Lawrence quietly enlisted in the Royal Air Force under an assumed name, but he was forced out when this was discovered. He then joined the Royal Tank Corps under another name, didn't care for it, and was eventually reassigned to the RAF. He served in India and in Britain, retiring in 1935. An avid motorcyclist, favoring Brough Superior bikes which he felt were the fastest made, he swerved to avoid hitting two bicyclists in Dorset, he died without regaining consciousness six days later. Hugh Cairns, the neurosurgeon who attempted to repair his injuries, devoted extensive research on the effects of motorcycle accidents which resulted in the use of crash helmets.
Biography from Wikipedia and FirstWorldWar.com
T. E. Lawrence quotes:
Quotes found : 38 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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- A thick headcloth forms a good protection against the sun, and if you wear a hat your best Arab friends will be ashamed of you in public. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - "Twenty-Seven Articles" Arab Bulletin (20 August 1917) - All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are the dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922) - All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas! permalink
T. E. Lawrence - Letter to Bruce Rogers (20 August 1931) - An opinion can be argued with; a conviction is best shot. The logical end of a war of creeds is the final destruction of one. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - "The Evolution of A Revolt" The Army Quarterly and Defence Journal (October 1920) - Cling tight to your sense of humour. You will need it every day. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - "Twenty-Seven Articles" Arab Bulletin (20 August 1917) - Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - "Twenty-Seven Articles" Arab Bulletin (20 August 1917) - Feisal asked me if I would wear Arab clothes like his own while in the camp. I should find it better for my own part, since it was a comfortable dress in which to live Arab-fashion as we must do. Besides, the tribesmen would then understand how to take me. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922) - For years we lived anyhow with one 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 so transcendent that our earlier ambitions faded in its glare. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922) - Half-way through the labour of an index to this book I recalled the practice of my ten years' study of history; and realized that I had never used the index of a book fit to read. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922) - I had dropped one form and not taken on the other, and was become like Mohammed's coffin in our legend, with a resultant feeling of intense loneliness in life, and a contempt, not for other men, but for all they do. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922) - I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars to earn you Freedom. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922) - I prefer lies to truth, especially when the lies are about me. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - I've been & am absurdly over-estimated. There are no supermen & I'm quite ordinary, & will say so whatever the artistic results. In that point I'm one of the few people who tell the truth about myself. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - If you wear Arab things, wear the best. Clothes are significant among the tribes, and you must wear the appropriate, and appear at ease in them. Dress like a Sherif, if they agree to it. permalink
T. E. Lawrence - "Twenty-Seven Articles" Arab Bulletin (20 August 1917) - Immorality, I know. Immortality, I cannot judge. permalink
T. E. Lawrence
Quotes found : 38 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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