Wilfred Owen Quotes

Quotes about:

• I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense conciliatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, This Generation, Generations

  51 Copy quote

• The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, Lying, Latin

  "Dulce et Decorum Est" l. 21 (written 1918) See Horace 20

  39 Copy quote

• All the poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful.

  Wilfred Owen

  Truth, Today, Poet

  Wilfred Owen (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Wilfred Owen (Illustrated)”, p.19, Delphi Classics

  7 Copy quote

• Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.

  Wilfred Owen

  Funny, Ambition, Numbers

  Wilfred Owen (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Wilfred Owen (Illustrated)”, p.479, Delphi Classics

  65 Copy quote

• Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

  Wilfred Owen

  Stones, Red, Lips

  Poems (1963 ed.) "Greater Love"

  17 Copy quote

• If I have to be a soldier I must be a good one, anything else is unthinkable

  Wilfred Owen

  Soldier, Historical, Unthinkable

  25 Copy quote

• Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, Pity, Poetry Is

  Poems (1963 ed.) preface

  31 Copy quote

• These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.

  Wilfred Owen

  Men, Tears, Merriment

  Wilfred Owen (1965). “The Collected poems of Wilfred Owen”, p.40, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, Gun, Bells

  "Anthem for Doomed Youth" l. 1 (written 1917)

  28 Copy quote

• No-man's land under snow is like the face of the moon: chaotic, crater ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, Moon, Men

  Wilfred Owen (1965). “The Collected poems of Wilfred Owen”, p.160, New Directions Publishing

  31 Copy quote

• All a poet can do today is warn.

  Wilfred Owen

  Poetry, Warning, Today

  Poems (1963 ed.) preface

  34 Copy quote

• And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

  Wilfred Owen

  Smile, Sullen, Hell

  1918 'Strange Meeting', collected in Poems (published1920).

  29 Copy quote

• This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, Book, Hero

  Preface (written 1918)

  26 Copy quote

• If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

  Wilfred Owen

  Dream, Children, Cancer

  "Dulce et Decorum Est" l. 21 (written 1918) See Horace 20

  26 Copy quote

• Be bullied, be outraged, by killed, but do not kill.

  Wilfred Owen

  Bullied, Outraged

  Wilfred Owen (1965). “The Collected poems of Wilfred Owen”, p.22, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• I, too, saw God through mud - The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled. War brought more glory to their eyes than blood, And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

  Wilfred Owen

  Children, War, Eye

  Wilfred Owen (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Wilfred Owen (Illustrated)”, p.23, Delphi Classics

  27 Copy quote

• Happy are men who yet before they are killed
  Can let their veins run cold.

  Wilfred Owen

  Running, Fear, War

  Wilfred Owen, Douglas Kerr (1994). “The Poems of Wilfred Owen”, p.18, Wordsworth Editions

  20 Copy quote

• My subject is war, and the pity of war.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, Pity, Subjects

  Preface (written 1918)

  7 Copy quote

• All I ask is to be held above the barren wastes of want.

  Wilfred Owen

  Want, Waste, Barren

  26 Copy quote

• The universal pervasion of ugliness, hideous landscapes, vile noises, foul language...everything. Unnatural, broken, blasted; the distortion of the dead, whose unburiable bodies sit outside the dug outs all day, all night, the most execrable sights on earth. In poetry we call them the most glorious.

  Wilfred Owen

  Night, Sight, Broken

  Wilfred Owen (1965). “The Collected poems of Wilfred Owen”, p.22, New Directions Publishing

  24 Copy quote

• My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory. The old lie: It is sweet and fitting that you should die for your country.

  Wilfred Owen

  Country, Sweet, Children

  22 Copy quote

• As bronze may be much beautified by lying in the dark damp soil, so men who fade in dust of warfare fade fairer, and sorrow blooms their soul.

  Wilfred Owen

  Lying, Dark, Men

  Wilfred Owen, Douglas Kerr (1994). “The Poems of Wilfred Owen”, p.73, Wordsworth Editions

  9 Copy quote

• I was a boy when I first realized that the fullest life liveable was a Poet's

  Wilfred Owen

  Boys, Firsts, Poet

  Wilfred Owen (1965). “The Collected poems of Wilfred Owen”, p.20, New Directions Publishing

  8 Copy quote

• Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland.

  Wilfred Owen

  Sweet, Fitting, Fatherland

  25 Copy quote

• Winter Song The browns, the olives, and the yellows died, And were swept up to heaven; where they glowed Each dawn and set of sun till Christmastide, And when the land lay pale for them, pale-snowed, Fell back, and down the snow-drifts flamed and flowed. From off your face, into the winds of winter, The sun-brown and the summer-gold are blowing; But they shall gleam with spiritual glinter, When paler beauty on your brows falls snowing, And through those snows my looks shall be soft-going.

  Wilfred Owen

  Beauty, Summer, Spiritual

  Wilfred Owen, Jon Stallworthy (1983). “Wilfred Owen: The Complete Poems and Fragments”, Chatto & Windus

  22 Copy quote

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