First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"A thousand Arabs means a thousand knives, delivered anywhere, day or night. It means a thousand camels. That means a thousand packs of high explosives and a thousand crack rifles. We can cross the whole of Arabia while Johnny Turk is still turning round. I'll smash his railways. And while he's mending them I'll smash them somewhere else. In thirteen weeks I can have Arabia in chaos."
"Sherif Ali, so long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are."
"I think you are another of these desert-loving English: Doughty, Stanhope, Gordon of Khartoum. No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees, there is nothing in the desert. No man needs nothing."
"Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men ā courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men ā mistrust and caution. It must be so."
"In this country, Mr. Bentley, the man who gives victory in battle is prized beyond every other man..."
"(To Lawrence) Dine with Auda, English. Dine with him. (To Harith Envoy) It is my pleasure, that you should dine with me... in WADI RUM!"
"I am Auda Abu Tayi! Does Auda serve? (Tribesmen in tent shout no, turns to ask those gathered outside) DOES AUDA SERVE?!? (Crowd yells angrily no)... I carry twenty-three great wounds, all got in battle. Seventy-five men have I killed with my own hands in battle. I scatter, I burn my enemies' tents. I take away their flocks and herds. The Turks pay me a golden treasure, yet I am poor! Because *I* am a river to my people! (Audas tribesmen cheer)"
"When we told lies you told half-lies. And a man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it."
"Big things have small beginnings."
"On the whole, I wish Iād stayed in Tunbridge Wells."
"Peter O'Toole - T.E. Lawrence"
"Omar Sharif - Sherif Ali"
"Alec Guinness - Prince Feisal"
"Anthony Quinn - Auda ibu Tayi"
"Claude Rains - Mr. Dryden"
"Jack Hawkins - General Edmund Allenby"
"Arthur Kennedy - Jackson Bentley"
"Anthony Quayle - Colonel Harry Brighton"
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.