Siegfried Sassoon quotes

Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives. (Siegfried Sassoon)
Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, And speed glum heroes up the line of death. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
The visionless officialized fatuity That once kept Europe safe for Perpetuity. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
In me the tiger sniffs the rose. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
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. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
What voice revisits me this night? What face To my heart's room returns? From the perpetual silence where the grace Of human sainthood burns Hastes he once more to harmonise and heal? I know not. Only I feel His influence undiminished And his life's work, in me and many, unfinished. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
Oh yes, I know the way to heaven was easy. We found the little kingdom of our passion that all can share who walk the road of lovers. In wild and secret happiness we stumbled; and gods and demons clamoured in our senses. (Siegfried Sassoon)
Deep in my morning time he made his mark And still he comes uncalled to be my guide In devastated regions When the brain has lost its bearings in the dark And broken in it's body's pride In the long campaign to which it had sworn allegiance. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans... Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
I'd say - "I used to know his father well; Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap." And when the war is done and youth stone dead I'd toddle safely home and die - in bed. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
The fact is that five years ago I was, as near as possible, a different person to what I am tonight. I, as I am now, didn't exist at all. Will the same thing happen in the next five years? I hope so. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
The dead...are more real than the living because they are complete. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
October's bellowing anger breakes and cleaves The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone, The armies who endured that sullen swamp. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. (Siegfried Sassoon)
Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the contrivance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
O martyred youth and manhood overthrown, The burden of your wrongs is on my head. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon