Siegfried Sassoon

Poet

1886-09-08

Quotes by Siegfried Sassoon

• 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.

  Read quote

• 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.

  Read quote

• I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.

  Read quote

• 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. The War Poems

  Read quote

• I didn't want to die - not before I'd finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.

  Read quote

• Mute in that golden silence hung with green,Come down from heaven and bring me in your eyesRemembrance of all beauty that has been,And stillness from the pools of Paradise.

  Read quote

• Mute in that golden silence hung with green,Come down from heaven and bring me in your eyesRemembrance of all beauty that has been,And stillness from the pools of Paradise.

  Read quote

• I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.

  Read quote

• 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. The War Poems

  Read quote

• 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.

  Read quote

• 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.

  Read quote

• I didn't want to die - not before I'd finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.

  Read quote

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

  Read quote

• 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.

  Read quote

• In me the tiger sniffs the rose.

  Read quote

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

  Read quote