The Book of Merlyn Quotes

“We find that at present the human race is divided into one wise man, nine knaves, and ninety fools out of every hundred. That is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them, and become 'politicians'; the wise man stands out, because he knows himself to be hopelessly outnumbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics, or philosophy; while the ninety fools plod off under the banners of the nine villains, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice and warfare. It is pleasant to have command, observes Sancho Panza, even over a flock of sheep, and that is why the politicians raise their banners. It is, moreover, the same thing for the sheep whatever the banner. If it is democracy, then the nine knaves will become members of parliament; if fascism, they will become party leaders; if communism, commissars. Nothing will be different, except the name. The fools will be still fools, the knaves still leaders, the results still exploitation. As for the wise man, his lot will be much the same under any ideology. Under democracy he will be encouraged to starve to death in a garret, under fascism he will be put in a concentration camp, under communism he will be liquidated.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to The Once & Future King

“I can imagine nothing more terrifying than an Eternity filled with men who were all the same. The only thing which has made life bearable…has been the diversity of creatures on the surface of the globe.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“It is a pity that there are no big creatures to prey on humanity. If there were enough dragons and rocs, perhaps mankind would turn its might against them. Unfortunately man is preyed upon by microbes, which are too small to be appreciated.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to The Once & Future King

“I am an anarchist, like any other sensible person.
~ Merlyn”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“He caught a glimpse of that extraordinary faculty in man, that strange, altruistic, rare, and obstinate decency which will make writers or scientists maintain their truths at the risk of death. Eppur si muove, Galileo was to say; it moves all the same. They were to be in a position to burn him if he would go on with it, with his preposterous nonsense about the earth moving round the sun, but he was to continue with the sublime assertion because there was something which he valued more than himself. The Truth. To recognize and to acknowledge What Is. That was the thing which man could do, which his English could do, his beloved, his sleeping, his now defenceless English. They might be stupid, ferocious, unpolitical, almost hopeless. But here and there, oh so seldome, oh so rare, oh so glorious, there were those all the same who would face the rack, the executioner, and even utter extinction, in the cause of something greater than themselves. Truth, that strange thing, the jest of Pilate's. Many stupid young men had thought they were dying for it, and many would continue to die for it, perhaps for a thousand years. They did not have to be right about their truth, as Galileo was to be. It was enough that they, the few and martyred, should establish a greatness, a thing above the sum of all they ignorantly had.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to The Once & Future King

“Neither force, nor argument, nor opinion," said Merlyn with the deepest sincerity, "are thinking. Argument is only a display of mental force, a sort of fencing with points in order to gain a victory, not for truth. Opinions are the blind alleys of lazy or of stupid men, who are unable to think. If ever a true politician really thinks a subject out dispassionately, even Homo stultus will be compelled to accept his findings in the end. Opinion can never stand beside truth. At present, however, Homo impoliticus is content either to argue with opinions or to fight with his fists, instead of waiting for the truth in his head. It will take a million years, before the mass of men can be called political animals.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“But they woke him with words, their cruel bright weapons.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“I see what you think you mean," said the magician, "but you are wrong. There is no excuse for war, none whatever, and whatever wrong which your nation might be doing to mine-short of war-my nation would be in the wrong if I started a war so as to redress it. A murderer, for instance, is not allowed to plead that his victim was rich and oppresing him, so why should a nation be allowed to? Wrongs have to be redressed by reason, not force.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit of comforting themselves for their degradation by pretending that children are childish.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“Guenever never cared for God. She was a good theologian, but that was all. The truth was that she was old and wise: she knew that Lancelot did care for God most passionately, that it was essential he should turn in that direction. So, for his sake, to make it easier for him, the great queen now renounced what she had fought for all her life, now set the example, and stood to her choice. She had stepped out of the picture.

Lancelot guessed a good deal of this, and, when she refused to see him, he climbed the convent wall with Gallic, ageing gallantry. He waylaid her to expostulate, but she was adamant and brave. Something about Mordred seems to have broken her lust for life. They parted, never to meet on earth.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“To disbelieve in original sin, does not mean that you must believe in original virtue. It only means that you must not believe that people are utterly wicked.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“Nobody can be saved from anything, unless they save themselves.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“In the course of a long experience of the human race, I have learned that you can never make them understand anything, unless you rub it in.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“People are dupes, and wicked too. That is what makes it interesting to get them better.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“One more try,' he asked, 'We are not quite done.' 'What is the use of trying?' 'It is a thing which people do.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“Neither force, nor argument, nor opinion,” said Merlyn with the deepest sincerity, “are thinking. Argument is only a display of mental force, a sort of fencing with points in order to gain a victory, not for truth. Opinions are the blind alleys of lazy or of stupid men, who are unable to think.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“Man seldom looks above his own height after adolescence.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“For happiness is only a bye-product of function, as light is a bye-product of the electric current running through the wires. If the current cannot run efficiently, the light does not come. That is why nobody finds happiness, who seeks it on its own account.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“he began to see why Merlyn had always clowned on purpose. It had been a means of helping people to learn in a happy way.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“Merlyn, […] was a staunch conservative – which was rather progressive of him, when you reflect that he was living backwards”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“Merlyn held up his hand. “Give him the humble earth-worm,” he said majestically. So the animals recited in unison: “The naturalist Darwin has pointed out that there are about 25,000 earth-worms in every field acre, that they turn over in England alone 320,000,000 tons of soil a year, and that they are to be found in almost every region of the world. In thirty years they will alter the whole earth’s surface to the depth of seven inches. ‘The earth without worms,’ says the immortal Gilbert White, ‘would soon become cold, hard-bound, void of fermentation, and consequently sterile.’​”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Conclusion to the Once and Future King

“One has to live one's knowledge”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“Man, proud man, stands there in the twentieth century, complacently believing that the race has 'advanced' in the course of a thousand miserable years, and busy blowing his brothers to bits. When will they learn that it takes million years for a bird to modify a single one of its primary feathers? There he stands, the crashing lubber, pretending that everything is different because he has made an internal combustion engine. There he stands, ever since Darwin, because he has heard that there is such thing as evolution. Quite regardless of the fact that evolution happens in million-year cycles, he thinks he has evolved since the Middle Ages. Perhaps the combustion engine has evolved, but not he. Look at him sniggering at his own progenitors, let alone the others types of mammal [...]. The sheer, shattering sauce of it! And making God in his own image! Believe me, the so-called primitive races who worshipped animals as gods were not so daft as people choose to pretend. At least they were humble.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“Why should not God have come to the earth as an earth-worm? There are a great many more worms than men, and they do a great deal more good.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn

“As for myself, I cannot forget the hedgehog’s last farewell, coupled with Quixote’s hint about the animals and Milton’s subterranean dream. It is little more than a theory, but perhaps the inhabitants of Bodmin will look at their tumulus, and, if it is like an enormous mole-hill with a dark opening in its side, particularly if there are some badger tracks in the vicinity, we can draw our own conclusions. For I am inclined to believe that my beloved Arthur of the future is sitting at this very moment among his learned friends, in the Combination Room of the College of Life, and that they are thinking away in there for all they are worth, about the best means to help our curious species:”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Conclusion to the Once and Future King

“Ah, tiggy,” he said. “Us have thee to thank for royalty. Farewell, tiggy, and a merry life to thee and thy sweet songs.” But the hedgehog paddled its feet as if it were bicycling, because it wanted to be put down. It tugged the sleeve again, when it was safe upon the floor, and the old man lowered his ear to hear the whisper. “Nay, nay,” it mentioned hoarsely, clutching his hand, looking earnestly in his face. “Say not Farewell.” It tugged again, dropping its voice to the brink of silence. “Orryvoyer,” whispered the urchin. “Orryvoyer.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Conclusion to the Once and Future King

“Merlyn wants to have an international fair, Sir. He wants to have a lot of flip-flaps and giant wheels and scenic railways in a reservation, and they are all to be slightly dangerous, so as to kill perhaps one man in a hundred. Entrance is to be voluntary, for he says that the one unutterably wicked thing about a war is conscription. He says that people will go to the fair of their own free-will, through boredom or through adrenalin deficiency or whatever it is, and that they are likely to feel the need for it during their twenty-fifth, thirtieth, and forty-fifth years. It is to be made fashionable and glorious to go. Every visitor will get a commemorative medal, while those who go fifty times will get what he calls the D.S.O. or the V.C. for a hundred visits.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Conclusion to the Once and Future King

“All the beauty of his humans came upon him, instead of their horribleness. He saw the vast army of martyrs who were his witnesses: young men who had gone out even in the first joy of marriage, to be killed on dirty battle-fields like Bedegraine for other men’s beliefs: but who had gone out voluntarily: but who had gone because they thought it was right: but who had gone although they hated it. They had been ignorant young men perhaps, and the things which they had died for had been useless. But their ignorance had been innocent. They had done something horribly difficult in their ignorant innocence, which was not for themselves.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Conclusion to the Once and Future King

“Travel, health, honour, love, appetite, comradeship, music, poetry and, as she had stated, being alive itself. It did not seem a bad list in its simplicity, particularly as she might have added something like Wisdom.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Conclusion to the Once and Future King