But there, war does not care for predetermination; it also destroys in fury that wich is immaterial, the hopes and expectations (from Requiem for a Hotel /Nekrolog auf ein Hotel,1918)

It is better to pay tribute of gold to the enemy than tribute of blood in war.

The greater part of our best years has been passed for our generation in these two great worldconvulsions. All will be changed after this war, which spends in one month more than nations earned before in yearsthere is no more security in our time than in those of the Reformation or the fall of Rome.

Whilst all the land was ringed with bristling arms And flames laid waste our world, All that was left me was a little garden And thou within it, my beloved, my comrade.

On the whole, more men had perhaps escaped into the war than from it.