Siegfried Sassoon Quotes

Quotes about:

Home Soldiers War Youth

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.

Siegfried Sassoon

Change, Years, Personality

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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.

Siegfried Sassoon

Party, Believe, Evil

Siegfried Sassoon (1949). “The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston”

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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.

Siegfried Sassoon

Cheer, Laughter, Home

Siegfried Sassoon (1983). “Siegfried Sassoon's long journey: selections from the Sherston memoirs”, Oxford University Press, USA

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The dead...are more real than the living because they are complete.

Siegfried Sassoon

Real

"Siegfried Sassoon's long journey: selections from the Sherston memoirs".

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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.

Siegfried Sassoon

War, Fighting, Men

Siegfried Sassoon (1983). “Siegfried Sassoon's long journey: selections from the Sherston memoirs”, Oxford University Press, USA

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Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin they think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

Siegfried Sassoon

Home, Gun, Thinking

Counter-Attack (1918) "Dreamers"

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Life for the majority of the population.
Is an unlovely struggle against unfair odds.
Culminating in a cheap funeral.

Siegfried Sassoon

Struggle, Odds, Funeral

Siegfried Sassoon (1983). “Siegfried Sassoon's long journey: selections from the Sherston memoirs”, Oxford University Press, USA

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In me the tiger sniffs the rose.

Siegfried Sassoon

Opposites, Rose, Duality

Siegfried Sassoon (1947). “Collected Poems”, London : Faber and Faber

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And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I'd toddle safely home and die--in bed.

Siegfried Sassoon

Betrayal, War, Home

Siegfried Sassoon (2012). “War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon”, p.58, Courier Corporation

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For it is humanly certain that most of us remember very little of what we have read. To open almost any book a second time is to be reminded that we had forgotten well-nigh everything that the writer told us. Parting from the narrator and his narrative, we retain only a fading impression; and he, as it were, takes the book away from us and tucks it under his arm.

Siegfried Sassoon

Book, Narrators, Fading

33 Copy quote
The song was wordless; The singing will never be done.

Siegfried Sassoon

Song, Singing, Done

War Poems (1919) "Everyone Sang"

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Who's this—alone with stone and sky? It's only my old dog and I— It's only him; it's only me; Alone with stone and grass and tree. What share we most—we two together? Smells, and awareness of the weather. What is it makes us more than dust? My trust in him; in me his trust.

Siegfried Sassoon

Dog, Dust, Sky

Siegfried Sassoon (1956). “Sequences”

23 Copy quote
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.

Siegfried Sassoon

Military, War, Believe

Siegfried Sassoon (1983). “Siegfried Sassoon's long journey: selections from the Sherston memoirs”, Oxford University Press, USA

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December stillness, teach me through your trees That loom along the west, one with the land, The veiled evangel of your mysteries. While nightfall, sad and spacious, on the down Deepens, and dusk embues me where I stand, With grave diminishings of green and brown, Speak, roofless Nature, your instinctive words; And let me learn your secret from the sky, Following a flock of steadfast-journeying birds In lone remote migration beating by. December stillness, crossed by twilight roads, Teach me to travel far and bear my loads.

Siegfried Sassoon

Twilight, Land, Sky

Siegfried Sassoon (1949). “Collected Poems”

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Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows.

Siegfried Sassoon

Land, Drawing, Soldier

'Dreamers' (1918)

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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.

Siegfried Sassoon

Men, Voice, Battle

Siegfried Sassoon, “Autumn”

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And the wind upon its way whispered the boughs of May, And touched the nodding peony flowers to bid them waken.

Siegfried Sassoon

Flower, Wind, May

Siegfried Sassoon (1949). “Collected Poems”

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I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers.

Siegfried Sassoon

Soldier, Acting, Behalf

Siegfried Sassoon (1983). “Siegfried Sassoon's long journey: selections from the Sherston memoirs”, Oxford University Press, USA

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Mud and rain and wretchedness and blood. Why should jolly soldier-boys complain? God made these before the roofless Flood - Mud and rain.

Siegfried Sassoon

Rain, Boys, Blood

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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.

Siegfried Sassoon

Morning, Thoughtful, Soul

Siegfried Sassoon (1949). “Collected Poems”

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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.

Siegfried Sassoon

War, Believe, Should Have

Siegfried Sassoon (1949). “The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston”

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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

Passion, Heaven, Secret

Siegfried Sassoon (1949). “Collected Poems”

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And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls
To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.

Siegfried Sassoon

Betrayal, Halls, Music Hall

'Blighters' (1917)

7 Copy quote
Across the land a faint blue veil of mist
Seems hung; the woods wear yet arrayment sober
Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist
The drooping cherry orchards of October
Like mournful pennons hang their shriveling leaves
Russet and orange: all things now decay;
Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves,
And sad the robins pipe at set of day.

Siegfried Sassoon

Autumn, Blue, Flames

Siegfried Sassoon (1949). “Collected Poems”

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How innocent were these Trees, that in
Mist-green May, blown by a prospering breeze,
Stood garlanded and gay;
Who now in sundown glow
Of serious colour clad confront me with their show
As though resigned and sad,
Trees, who unwhispering stand umber, bronze, gold;
Pavilioning the land for one grown tired and old;
Elm, chestnut, aspen and pine, I am merged in you,
Who tell once more in tones of time,
Your foliaged farewell.

Siegfried Sassoon

Fall, Farewell, Tired

Siegfried Sassoon (1956). “Sequences”

28 Copy quote

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Born: September 8, 1886
Died: September 1, 1967
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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