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Wilfred Thesiger

64 quotes

“God, you must be a couple of pansies.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Newby, Eric (1958). A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush. Secker & Warburg.
“They [the Middle East Anti Locust Unit] were the golden key that unlocked Arabia for me. To somebody who was interested in desert exploration the Empty Quarter offered the, sort of, ultimate challenge.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: BBC Radio 4, Desert Island Discs, Fri 12 Oct 1979.
“I think the harder the life, the finer the type, yes, and I certainly felt this about the Bedu. When I went there, I felt that the difficulty was going to be living up physically to the hardships of their life. But, on the contrary, it was the difficulty of meeting their high standards: their generosity, their patience, their loyalty, their courage and all these things. And they had a quality of nobility.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Sir David Attenborough first broadcast on Channel 4 in August 1994.
“The biggest misfortune in human history is the invention of the combustion engine. Cars and airplanes diminish the world, rob it of all its diversity. Young men who meet me want to know how they could do what I've done. But all they can be is tourists now.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Book Report by David Streitfeld. The Washington Post. 6 June 1999.
“I might have been homosexual if I was born in a different age but as it was I remained asexual.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Stewart, Rory (2007). Arabian Sands (Introduction). London: Penguin Classics. p. xii. ISBN 9780141442075
“The harder the life the finer the type and there’s no doubt about that; the easier you make life the lower goes your standards.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview. 2001.
“We parted before I went to Abu Dhabi, which I found an Arabian Nightmare, the final disillusionment. For me this book remains a memorial to a vanished past, a tribute to a once magnificent people.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Preface to the 1984 edition
“The Empty Quarter offered me the chance to win distinction as a traveller; but I believed that it could give me more than this, that in those empty wastes I could find the peace that comes with solitude, and, among the Bedu, comradeship in a hostile world. Many who venture into dangerous places have found this comradeship among members of their own race; a few find it more easily among people from other lands, the very differences which separate them binding them ever more closely. I found it among the Bedu. Without it these journeys would have been a meaningless penance.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I craved for the past, resented the present, and dreaded the future.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 tranquillity was to be found there. 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 for sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The rifles with which they fought were all that they accepted from the outside world, the only modern invention which interested them.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had yet to learn that no Bedu thinks it shameful to beg, and that often he will look at the gift which he has received and say, ‘Is this all that you are going to give me?’ I was seeing the worst side of their character, and was disillusioned and resentful, and irritated by their assumption of superiority. In consequence I was assertive and unreasonable.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They were Bedu, and these empty spaces where there was neither shade nor shelter were their homelands. Any of them could have worked in the gardens around Salala; all of them would have scorned this easier life of lesser men. Among the Bedu only the broken are stranded among the cultivations on the desert’s shore.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After all, many people feel today that it is morally indefensible to hang a man, even if he has raped and killed a child, but I could not forget how easily we ourselves had taken to killing during the war. Some of the most civilized people I had known had been the most proficient.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not hunger nor thirst that frightens the Bedu; they maintain that riding they can survive in cold weather for seven days without food or water. It is the possible collapse of their camels which haunts them. If this happens, death is certain.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But we seldom spoke of sex, for starving men dream of food, not women, and our bodies were generally too tired to lust.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What use will money be to him in the Sands.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now I had crossed it [the Empty Quarter]. To others my journey would have little importance. It would produce nothing except a rather inaccurate map which no one was ever likely to use. It was a personal experience, and the reward had been a drink of clean, nearly tasteless water. I was content with that.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Strike a Bedu and he will kill you either then or later. It is easy for strangers to give offence without meaning to do so. I once put my hand on the back of bin Kabina’s neck and he turned on me and asked furiously if I took him for a slave. I had no idea that I had done anything wrong.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is characteristic of Bedu to do things by extremes, to be either wildly generous or unbelievably mean, very patient or almost hysterically excitable, to be incredibly brave or to panic for no apparent reason. Ascetic by nature, they derive satisfaction from the bare simplicity of their lives and scorn the amenities which others would judge essential.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This incident impressed upon me the Bedu’s indifference to human life. The man was sick and if God ordered it he would die. He was a stranger who came from a tribe unrelated to theirs. None of them felt an interest because he was a human being like themselves. His death would in no way affect them. Yet their code demanded that, however unwanted he might be, they should fight in his defence if he were attacked whilst with them.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They strolled with me through the streets hand in hand, as is usual with Arab friends, but I was lightly uncomfortable, having re-acquired my inhibitions with my trousers.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the deserts, however arid, I have never felt homesick for green fields and woods in spring, but now that I was in England I longed with an ache that was almost physical to be back in Arabia.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“…I had learnt that the most effective way to spread a story was to tell it to one or two Arabs under a pledge of secrecy.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I could now move without effort from one world to the other as easily as I could change my clothes, but I appreciated that I was in danger of belonging to neither. When I was among my own people, a shadowy figure was always at my side watching them with critical, intolerant eyes.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All my life I had hated machines. I could remember how bitterly at school I had resented reading the news that someone had flown across the Atlantic or travelled through the Sahara in a car. I had realized even then that the speed and ease of mechanical transport must rob the world of all diversity.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As the plane climbed over the town and swung above the sea I knew how it felt to go into exile.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My own tastes went, perhaps, too far to the other extreme. I loathed cars, aeroplanes, wireless and television, in fact most of our civilization's manifestations in the past fifty years, and was always happy, in Iraq or elsewhere, to share a smoke-filled hovel with a shepherd, his family and beasts. In such a household, everything was strange and different, their self-reliance put me at ease, and I was fascinated by the feeling of continuity with the past. I envied them a contentment rare in the world today and a mastery of skills, however simple, that I myself could never hope to attain.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The desert Arabs had always been a people born to hardship. For them there was no ease or comfort, only the weariness of long marches and toil at well-heads. 'We are Bedu,' they boasted, and asked only the freedom that was theirs. Stoical in pain, and often very brave, they lived for the raid and the counter-raid, which were conducted according to set rules and usually with great chivalry. They took a fierce pride in danger and suffering, and never doubted their superiority over villager and townsman.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have led a hard life; this was my choice. It was also an inexpensive one: this was essential. I would not have had it otherwise, nor asked for more. Looking back, I would happily live these years again, in the context of the past.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For untold centuries the Bedu lived in the desert; they lived there from choice.... All of them would have scorned this easier life of lesser men. Valuing freedom above all else, they took a fierce pride in the very hardship of their lives, forcing unwilling recognition of their superiority on the townsmen and villagers who feared, hated and affected to despise them. Even today there is no Arab, however sophisticated, who would not proudly proclaim Bedu lineage.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To me it is always the people rather than the places that matter.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“..I was thankful that I had not gone there with members of my own race, as one of large, meticulously organised expedition. I should have hated, in those surroundings, to listen to the wireless, the news, sports commentaries and European music; it would have seemed utterly incongruous. All I ever want to bring with me from our civilisation are some books, and those that I had, though there had been little opportunity to read them. In Arabia I had learnt to move from one world to another as easily as changing clothes, but always tried to keep the worlds apart.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Nuristanis had retained their individuality as a race even after conversion to Islam. Now they would be visited by an ever-increasing number of expeditions seeking adventure in wild places. This would disrupt a society utterly unprepared. Each expedition by its very presence would help destroy what it had come to find.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All that is best in the Arabs came from the desert....... From the desert too has come the Arabs' pride of race, their generosity and sense of hospitality; their dignity and the reagrd they have for the dignity of others; their humour; their courage and their patience; the language that they speak, and their passionate love of poetry. But they are a race who produce their best only under conditions of extreme hardship.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The desert Arabs had no tradition of civilisation behind them; no architectural inheritance - they lived in black tents, or in rooms devoid of furnishings in their villages and towns. They had no taste for refinements, demanded only the bare necessities of life. It was a life that produced much that was noble, little that was gracious and nothing that was artistic.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now that the Arabs are among the economic masters of the world I fear that many will find unendurable the boredome of their wealth.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe that day [Ras Tafari's victory parade, Addis Ababa, 3 Nov 1916] implanted in me a life-long craving for barbaric splendour, for savagery and colour and the throb of drums, and that it gave me a lasting veneration for long-established custom and ritual, from which would derive later a deep-seated resentment of Western innovations in other lands, and a distaste for the drab uniformity of the modern world.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No wonder that in this setting [Eton], during those impressionable years, I acquired lasting respect for tradition and veneration of the past. Here, too, from masters and boys alike, I learnt responsibility, the decencies of life, and standards of civilised behaviour.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Later he [Evelyn Waugh] asked, at second-hand, if he could accompany me into the Danakil country, where I planned to travel. I refused. Had he come, I suspect only one of us would have returned.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[re Danakil country] I was among a savage, good-looking people with a dangerous reputation. I was travelling with camels in hot, arid country under testing conditions where, if things went wrong, I could get no help and where men's lives depended on my judgement.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had felt the lure of the unexplored, the compulsion to go where others had not been.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe that most men have an inborn desire to hunt and kill and that even today this primitive urge has only been eradicated in a small minority of the human race.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As I looked round the clearing at the ranks of squatting warriors and the small isolated group of my own men, I knew that this moonlight meeting in unknown Africa with a savage potentate who hated Europeans was the realization of my boyhood dreams. I had come here in search of adventure: the mapping, the collecting of animals and birds were all incidental. The knowledge that somewhere in this neighbourhood three previous expeditions had been exterminated, that we were far beyond any hope of assistance, that even our whereabouts were unknown, I found wholly satisfying.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Personally, I would forgo any other comfort to drink clean water.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I also questioned whether it was right to try to impose on the Sudanese the conventions and values of our utterly alien civilization, and sometimes expressed these doubts in letters to my mother. I could not help feeling that other races were entitled to their own customs and moral standards, however much these might differ from ours.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“More important, something decisive in my life, he [Guy Moore] taught me to feel affection for tribesmen. Ever since then it has been people that have mattered to me, rather than places. I have never craved magnificent scenery or opportunities for sport in the way that I have longed to be with certain tribes and, above all, certain individuals among them.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was exhilarated by the sense of space, the silence, and the crisp cleanness of the sand. I felt in harmony with the past, travelling as men had travelled for untold generations across deserts, dependent for their survival on the endurance of their camels and their own inherited skills.”
Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source