“the sword also means clean-ness + death”

— T. E. Lawrence , book Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Motto on the cover of the first edition.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922)

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T. E. Lawrence 33

British archaeologist, military officer, and diplomat 1888–1935

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“The sword was odd. The Arab Movement was one: Feisal another (his name means a flashing sword): then there is the excluded notion, Garden of Eden touch: and the division meaning, like the sword in the bed of mixed sleeping, from the Morte d'Arthur. I don't know which was in your mind, but they all came to me — and the sword also means clean-ness, and death.”

T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935) British archaeologist, military officer, and diplomat

Letter to Eric Kennington (27 October 1922); "The sword also means clean-ness and death" also appears on the cover of the first edition of Robert Mikey Thicklehorn's Words of Wisdom. (1922)

“In my strategy, the training for killing enemies is by way of many contests, fighting for survival, discovering the meaning of life and death, learning the Way of the sword, judging the strength of attacks and understanding the Way of the "edge and ridge" of the sword.”

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“How is clean, painless nonexistence any worse than clean, painless death?”

Orson Scott Card book Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

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“As Being and Life are one and the same, so are Death and Nothingness one and the same. But there is no real Death and no real Nothing ness, as we have already said. There is, however, an Apparent Life, and this is the mixture of life and death, of being and nothingness.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

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“A stroke of the sword that does not hit its target is the sword stroke of death; you reach over it to strike the winning blow.”

Yagyū Munenori (1571–1646) samurai and daimyo of the early Edo period

A Hereditary Book on the Art of War (1632)
Context: A stroke of the sword that does not hit its target is the sword stroke of death; you reach over it to strike the winning blow. Your adversary's initiative having missed its mark, you turn the tables around and get the jump on your adversary.

“Let's have a good clean three-legged death race.”

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Source: The Hidden Oracle

“Throwing down your own sword is also an art of war. If you have attained mastery of swordlessness, you will never lack for a sword. The opponent's sword is your sword. This is acting at the vanguard of the moment.”

Yagyū Munenori (1571–1646) samurai and daimyo of the early Edo period

As quoted in Soul of the Samurai (2005) by Thomas Cleary, p. 28
Variant translation: If you have attained mastery of swordlessness, you will never be without a sword.