The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King # 1-4)(Annotated)

by T.H. White

EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY

A. We are more numerous than they are, therefore we have a right to their mash. B. They are more numerous than we are, therefore they are wickedly trying to steal our mash. C. We are a mighty race and have a natural right to subjugate their puny one. D. They are a mighty race and are unnaturally trying to subjugate our inoffensive one. E. We must attack them in self-defence. F. They are attacking us by defending thelmselves. G. If we do not attack them today, they will attack us tomorrow. H. In any case we are not attacking them at all. We are offering them incalculable benefits.

Wart was past hoping. The repeating voices in his head, which he could not shut off—the lack of privacy, under which others ate from his stomach while others again sang in his brain—the dreary blank which replaced feeling—the dearth of all but two values—the total monotony more than the wickedness: these had begun to kill the joy of life which belonged to his boyhood.

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn.

"Four things," he whispered, "that a Lothian cannot trust—a cow's horn, a horse's hoof, a dog's snarl, and an Englishman's laugh." They moved in the straw uneasily, listening to some secret movements in the room below.

"It is how you are thinking. If there is one thing I can't stand, it is stupidity. I always say that stupidity is the Sin against the Holy Ghost."

Jesus knew as much as the Austrian did about saving people. But the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into storm troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people."

Balance was the sixth sense, which she won when she first learned to walk, and now she has the seventh one—knowledge of the world.

Thank God for the aged And for age itself, and illness and the grave. When we are old and ill, and particularly in the coffin, It is no trouble to behave.

"Long ago, when I had my Merlyn to help, he tried to teach me to think. He knew he would have to leave in the end, so he forced me to think for myself. Don't ever let anybody teach you to think, Lance: it is the curse of the world."

Morals are difficult things to talk about, but what has happened is that we have invented a moral sense, which is rotting now that we can't give it employment. And when a moral sense begins to rot it is worse than when you had none.

must not commit mortal sin, even if twelve lives depend upon it. Dogmatically

Do you know, I shall be talking about God a great deal, and this is a word which offends unholy people just as badly as words like 'damn' and so on offend the holy ones.

'Ah, Lancelot of evil faith and poor belief, why is thy will turned so lightly toward thy deadly sin?'

Generosity is the eighth deadly sin.

Do you think you can stop the consequences of a bad action, by doing good ones afterwards? I don't.

Was it the wicked leaders who led innocent populations to slaughter, or was it wicked populations who chose leaders after their own hearts?

He might give the impetus to the falling building, but surely it had to be toppling on its own account before it fell? If this were true, then wars were not calamities into which amiable innocents were led by evil men. They were national movements, deeper, more subtle in origin.

God had told people that they would have to cease to live as individuals. They would have to go into the force of life, like a drop falling into a river. God had said that it was only the men who could give up their jealous selves, their futile individualities of happiness and sorrow, who would die peacefully and enter the ring. He that would save his life was asked to lose it.