Misery, anger, indignation, discomfort-those conditions produce literature. Contentment-never. So there you are.
T. E. LawrenceRead
When I am angry, I pray God to swing our globe into the fiery sun and prevent the sorrows of the not-yet-born: but when I am content, I want to lie forever in the shade, till I become a shade myself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the duality of human emotions, illustrating how anger can lead to destructive thoughts, while contentment brings a desire for peace and stillness.
In this quote, T. E. Lawrence captures the contrasting emotions of anger and contentment. When overwhelmed by anger, he envisions extreme actions to eliminate future suffering; yet, in moments of tranquillity, he yearns for a peaceful existence, suggesting that true happiness lies in acceptance and a wish for quietude. Lawrence's words articulate the human struggle between destructive impulses and the pursuit of serenity, highlighting a profound understanding of our emotional landscape.
Themes
AngerContentmentPeaceEmotionExistence
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about managing emotions, this quote can illustrate the importance of finding peace.
More from T. E. Lawrence
All quotes →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!
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In peace-armies discipline meant the hunt, not of an average but of an absolute; the hundred per cent standard in which the ninety-nine were played down to the level of the weakest man on parade.... The deeper the discipline, the lower was the individual excellence; also the more sure the performance.
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The common base of all the Semitic creeds, winners or losers, was the ever present idea of world-worthlessness. Their profound reaction from matter led them to preach bareness, renunciation, poverty; and the atmosphere of this invention stifled the minds of the desert pitilessly.
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Arab civilizations had been of an abstract nature, moral and intellectual rather than applied; and their lack of public spirit made their excellent private qualities futile. They were fortunate in their epoch: Europe had fallen barbarous; and the memory of Greek and Latin learning was fading from men's minds.
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We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves; yet when we achieved, and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew.
T. E. LawrenceRead
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