“As I looked round the clearing at the ranks of squatting warriors and the small isolated group of my own men, I knew that this moonlight meeting in unknown Africa with a savage potentate who hated Europeans was the realization of my boyhood dreams. I had come here in search of adventure: the mapping, the collecting of animals and birds were all incidental. The knowledge that somewhere in this neighbourhood three previous expeditions had been exterminated, that we were far beyond any hope of assistance, that even our whereabouts were unknown, I found wholly satisfying.”

— Wilfred Thesiger

Source: The Life Of My Choice (1987), p. 146.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "As I looked round the clearing at the ranks of squatting warriors and the small isolated group of my own men, I knew th…" by Wilfred Thesiger?

Wilfred Thesiger 55

British explorer 1910–2003

Related quotes

“The words went round and round and round in my mind and my body, until I knew they were no longer my words but something that had been carved into my heart.
And now my soul was crying.”

Tracey Emin (1963) English artist, one of the group known as Britartists or Young British Artists

Source: Strangeland

“I had hoped, at my departure, I would feel sure and knowledgeable about everything that lay ahead -- after all, I had been "analyzed." Instead, all I could see were question marks.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

“I knew then that they had been men, neither gods nor demons. It is a great knowledge, hard to tell and believe. They were men — they went a dark road, but they were men.”

Stephen Vincent Benét book By the Waters of Babylon

By the Waters of Babylon (1937)

“I never used any outside influence to advance my career. All I had was the inner urge to seek more within myself. The key to my motivation has always been to look at how far I had still to go rather than how far I had come.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 140.

“Years ago I read a man named Machado de Assis who wrote a book called Dom Casmurro. Machado de Assis is a South American writer — black father, Portuguese mother — writing in 1865, say. I thought the book was very nice. Then I went back and read the book and said, Hmm. I didn’t realize all that was in that book. Then I read it again, and again, and I came to the conclusion that what Machado de Assis had done for me was almost a trick: he had beckoned me onto the beach to watch a sunset. And I had watched the sunset with pleasure. When I turned around to come back in I found that the tide had come in over my head. That’s when I decided to write.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Paris Review Interview (1990)

“She fitted into my biggest armchair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight about the hips that season.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Carry On, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)
Source: Carry on, Jeeves

“I have loved my German people and my fatherland with a warm heart. I have done my duty by the laws of my people and I am sorry this time my people were led by men who were not soldiers and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge. Germany, good luck.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

Last words, 10/16/46. Quoted in "The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II" - Page 564 - by Jon E. Lewis - History - 2002

“I knew — because of my race, and my class, and rural geography … all these forces that crush all sorts of American kids, crush their hopes and dreams — I knew I had no chance unless I left and went to a better school.”

Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker

On Alexie’s realization that the school on his reservation offered few educational opportunities in “Sherman Alexie Says He's Been 'Indian Du Jour' For A 'Very Long Day'” http://www.npr.org/2017/06/20/533653471/sherman-alexie-says-hes-been-indian-du-jour-for-a-very-long-day in NPR (2017 Jun 20)

“My meetings with [Ahmed Chalabi] were very brief. I mean, I think I met with him at the State of the Union and just kind of working through the rope line, and he might have come with a group of leaders. But I haven't had any extensive conversations with him.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

1 June 2004, remarks on Iraqi Interim Government http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040601-2.html
2000s, 2004

“Your map of Africa is really quite nice. But my map of Africa lies in Europe. Here is Russia, and here… is France, and we're in the middle — that's my map of Africa.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Discussing the w:Emin Pasha Relief Expedition with Eugen Wolf on 5 December 1888
:„Ihre Karte von Afrika ist ja sehr schön, aber meine Karte von Afrika liegt in Europa. Hier liegt Rußland, und hier" - nach links deutend - "liegt Frankreich, und wir sind in der Mitte; das ist meine Karte von Afrika."
::Eugen Wolf: Vom Fürsten Bismarck und seinem Haus. Tagebuchblätter. 2nd edition Berlin 1904, p. 16 archive.org http://archive.org/stream/vomfrstenbismar00wolfgoog#page/n34/mode/2up
1880s

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Wilfred Thesiger 55

Related quotes

Related topics