"These [RAF] airmen were my fellow countrymen, and I was proud to be of their race. I knew the essential decency which was the bedrock of their character, their humour, stubbornness, and self-reliance. I knew that if called upon they could adapt themselves to any kind of life, in the desert, in the jungle, in mountains or on the sea, and that in many respects no race in the world was their equal. But the things that interested them bored me. They belonged to an age of machines; they were fascinated by cars and aeroplanes, and found their relaxation in the cinema and the wireless. I knew that I stood apart from them and would never find contentment among them, whereas I could find it among the Bedu, although I should never be one of them."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p.168.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilfred_Thesiger
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Wilfred Thesiger
Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger KBE, DSO, FRAS, FRSL, FRGS (3 June 1910 – 24 August 2003), also called Mubarak bin London (Arabic for "the blessed one of London") was an English explorer and travel writer.
68 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Wilfred Thesiger →
Related Quotes
"In the deserts, however arid, I have never felt homesick for green fields and woods in spring, but now that I was in …"
"I could now move without effort from one world to the other as easily as I could change my clothes, but I appreciated…"
"To me it is always the people rather than the places that matter."
"They strolled with me through the streets hand in hand, as is usual with Arab friends, but I was lightly uncomfortabl…"
"As I listened I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu. Their way of life naturally made the…"
"…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 secr…"
"For untold centuries the Bedu lived in the desert; they lived there from choice.... All of them would have scorned th…"
"It is characteristic of Bedu to do things by extremes, to be either wildly generous or unbelievably mean, very patien…"
"This incident impressed upon me the Bedu’s indifference to human life. The man was sick and if God ordered it he woul…"
"All my life I had hated machines. I could remember how bitterly at school I had resented reading the news that someon…"