Context

This line is spoken by T.E. Lawrence (played by Peter O'Toole) in the movie Lawrence of Arabia, directed David Lean (1962).

Lawrence of Arabia is considered by a pile of critics to be one of the most important movies ever (like… ever). It's all about a controversial British officer who went native with the Arabs during WWI and annihilated a bunch of Turks—sometimes pretty ruthlessly. Sherif Ali is one of Lawrence's main frenemies while on the campaign. If you can't tell from the quote, Lawrence isn't always totally pleased with how his new Arab buddies treat each other, and he thinks that their infighting is keeping them down. It's kinda funny that a European is lecturing another culture about infighting during, you know, World War I.

Where you've heard it

Well, the quote is mentioned in this article about how Hollywood villainizes Muslims, but we're not so sure you caught that one. Recently, you might've seen a parody of the movie as a whole on Robot Chicken, or the episode of American Dad! where Rogerdresses up like Lawrence to ride Stan as a horse.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Hmm, yeah… broad statements on how other cultures ought to act might definitely come off as pretentious.