The Devil's Guard Quotes

“I, myself, searched for Sham-bha-la for eleven years.
I am perhaps a little wiser than I was, but it may be I am only
lazy and afraid. At any rate, it seems to me a waste of energy
to try to learn what is beyond my understanding. I don't even
understand my own religion. How shall I understand that of
individuals whose thinking is said to comprehend all religions
and philosophies and all the problems of the human race?”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard

“Oh, would that
I had died the way the Sikh did! I can not go forward. I shall
not submit to being made to see more clearly than I do. Yet, if
I turn back I am self-confessed coward! Furthermore, how can I
turn back! How shall I reach India, alone, alive? As a corpse I
should no longer interest myself. And if I should succeed in
reaching India, I should despise myself, because you and Jimgrim
treated me as fellow man and yet I failed you. On the other hand,
if I go forward they will teach me the reality of things, of which
already I know much too much! It has been bad enough as failed
B.A. to stick my tongue into my cheek and flatter blind men--
pompous Englishmen and supine Indians--for a living. I have had
to eat dust from the wheels of what the politicians think is
progress; and I have had to be polite when I was patronized by
men whom I should pity if I had the heart to do it! And I could
endure it, Rammy sahib, because I only knew more than was good
for me and not all of it by any means! I do not wish to know more.
If I saw more clearly I should have to join the revolutionaries--
who are worse than those they revolute against! It is already
bad enough to have to toady to the snobs on top. To have to agree
with the snobs underneath, who seek to level all men to a common
meanness since they can not admire any sort of superiority--that
would be living death! I would rather pretend to admire the
Englishman whose snobbery exasperates me, than repeat the lies
of Indians whose only object is to do dishonestly and badly but
much more cleverly what the English do honestly and with all the
stupidity of which they are capable!”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard

“And forget not this: that outward semblance of authority is not
a necessary symptom of its essence. There are men in high place
who have no authority at all beyond what indolence confers because
the indolence of many is the opportunity of one. Such men lead
multitudes astray.--From The Book Of The Sayings Of Tsiang Samdup”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard

“I am a lama," said the man in yellow. "It is lamas who identify
incarnate Buddhas. If I say the Lord Chenresi is among us, some
will listen. Some of high rank will confirm my word. It is a good
thing for religion to have manifestations--which have been scarce
of late, and men are not so respectful as they used to be. Also,
it is a long way from Lhassa to this monastery. There can be a
rumor sent forth, that will take hold and excite, arousing the hope
of people, of whom many will be monks. So that they who will be
sent from Lhassa to investigate will not dare to deny the story,
knowing how much safer it is to deceive men than to undeceive them.”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard

“Of every ten who tread the Middle Way to Knowledge there are nine
who turn aside through avarice, though not all avarice is born of
belly-hunger or the greed for gold. Some seek preeminence, such
eminence as they have won corroded by insane pride. So by this
mark you shall know the Middle Way, that whoso treads it truly
avoids vices, having found them in himself, so that he knows their
habit and is temperate in judgment, throwing no stones lest he
break the windows of his own soul.--From The Book Of The Sayings
of Tsiang Samdup”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard

“You may be sure of this, my son: that no decision you may take,
nor any course, will meet with universal favor. Though you turn
to the right or to the left, or go ahead, or turn back, or attempt
to stand still, there will come to you some critic to advise the
contrary. For ten fail where the one succeeds; and some who failed
are jealous, others vain, some full of malice. There are also honest
men who, having failed, would warn you of the reef on which they
wrecked their too unmanageable bark. I tell you, in the end you
must decide all issues for yourself, and there is only one true guide,
which is experience.--From The Book Of The Sayings Of Tsiang Samdup”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard

“Consider this, my son: this earth-life is a little time, of which
a third is spent asleep. What went before it, and what cometh after,
are a long time--verily a time too long for measurement. Shall we
be of the herd who say that dreams are a delusion because waking
we can not interpret them in terms of common speech? Or shall we,
rather than pretend to have more knowledge than the gods, admit
that possibly some dreams may link us with that universe from which
we came into a temporary world, and into which we must inevitably
yield ourselves again? Some dreams are memories, it may be, of
experience gained in the infinity of time before the world was.
And the wisest--aye, the very wisest of us--is he altogether sure
that all earth-life is not a dream.--From The Book Of The Sayings
Of Tsiang Samdup”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard

“Since dugpas wished to get you out of here, where you were safe, how
else should they expel you than by causing you to expel yourselves by
violence? When fools make war they expend their resources squandering
money and life and food until the victor loses with the vanquished,
and another, who is wiser, overwhelms them both. No dugpa would do
such foolishness. He sacrifices little dugpas, even as the governments
send soldiers to be slain, because there are always plenty who will
fill the lower ranks. But one little sleepy, stupid, belly-loving
dugpa is as useful to him as an army that a government flatters and
sends to its death; because he wages war by causing his enemy to
make mistakes, and he wins not by what he himself does, but through
the self-destroying acts of whomsoever he would conquer.”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard

“There be many gurus, and some good ones whom it is no great task
to differentiate, seeing that those who make the loudest claim
are least entitled to respect. They who are the true guides into
Knowledge know that nothing can be taught, although the learner
easily can be assisted to discover what is in himself. Other than
which there is no knowledge of importance, except this: that what
is in himself is everywhere.--From The Book Of The Sayings Of
Tsiang Samdup”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard

“Teach a child arithmetic," he said at last, "and he can use it to
cheat with, can't he? Teach a man the laws and forces of the
universe, and he can turn them against his teacher, can't he?
Give a child a box of matches, and there will always be some one
to show him how to set fire to a house. Teach me spiritual knowledge,
and for every one desire to use it rightly I shall have a thousand
impulses to do the wrong thing. Persistence in thinking the wrong
thing makes a man a fool if he is untaught and a dugpa if he knows
too much. Do you think you know enough to be a dugpa?”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard

“They're hypnotists. They're incredibly expert psychologists. And
they're just as keen on getting control of the whole world as, for
instance, the Bolshevists are. They believe in their black science
as enthusiastically as the Bolshevists believe in communism--much
more enthusiastically, that is, than most Christians believe in
Christianity. And remember: those men who have caught Rait are
merely the small fry who take orders from the higher-ups behind
the scenes.

"They may propose to catch us, and psychologize us, and make use
of us in some way. The White Lodge accepts chelas. Christians
make converts and put them to work. Everybody with a bug in his
head tries to rope in everybody else--so why not dugpas?”
― Talbot Mundy, The Devil's Guard