Siegfried Sassoon quotes - page 2

Selfless and ardent, resolute and gay, So in this hour, in strange survival stands Your ghost, whom I am powerless to repay. (Siegfried Sassoon)
Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
Here was the world's worst wound. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
Who will remember, passing through this Gate, The unheroic Dead who fed the guns? View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
Man, it seemed, had been created to jab the life out of Germans. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. 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. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
October's bellowing anger breakes and cleavesThe bronzed battalions of the stricken woodIn whose lament I hear a voice that grievesFor battle's fruitless harvest, and the feudOf outrage men. Their lives are like the leavesScattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blownAlong the westering furnace flaring red.O martyred youth and manhood overthrown,The burden of your wrongs is on my head. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals. Were there even anything to say for it, it should not be said; for its spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages. 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. He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, Sick for escape,- loathing the strangled horror And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead. View quote
Siegfried Sassoon
O fathering friend and scientist of good, Who in solitude, one bygone summer's day, And in the throes of bodily anguish, passed away From dream and conflict and research-lit lands Of ethnological learning, - even as you stood Selfless and ardent, resolute and gay, So in this hour, in strange survival stands Your ghost, whom I am powerless to repay. (Siegfried Sassoon)