74 Quotes by Siegfried Sassoon

I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.

He’s a cheery old card”, grunted Harry to JackAs they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.But he did for them both by his plan of attack. (The General)

But I've grown thoughtful now. And you have lost Your early-morning freshness of surprise At being so utterly mine: you've learned to fear The gloomy, stricken places in my soul, And the occasional ghosts that haunt my gaze.

All this, I suspect, has been little more than the operation known as the pilgrimage from the cradle to the grave, but I have had a comfortable feeling that, however ordinary my enterprises may have been, they had at any rate the advantage of containing, for me, an element of sustained unfamiliarity. I am one of those persons who begin life by exclaiming they've "never seen anything like this before" and die in the hope that they may say the same of heaven.

Sitting here I glance over my right shoulder at the little row of books, red and green and blue, which stand waiting for my hand, offering their accumulated riches. I think of the years that may be in store for me, and of all the pages I may turn.

Phantoms of thought and memory thinned and fled.

Soldiers are dreamers.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by,Sneak home and pray you’ll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.

Suicide in the trenches:I knew a simple soldier boyWho grinned at life in empty joy,Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,And whistled early with the lark.In winter trenches, cowed and glumWith crumps and lice and lack of rum,He put a bullet through his brain.No one spoke of him again. * * * * *You smug-faced crowds with kindling eyeWho cheer when soldier lads march by,Sneak home and pray you'll never knowThe hell where youth and laughter go.