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First World War Quotes

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First World War Quotes

“My biggest hope for this work is that it will help others to remember the sacrifices made for our freedom, and even more so to remember that the men, women, and children all involved in and affected by this era were not just statistics: they were people just like we are, with the same hopes, dreams, and very imminent fears.”

PeopleMenChildrenWarHopeWomenFreedomDreamsCostSoldierStatisticsHonourRemembranceNovemberFearsFirst World WarEraWorld War OneSacrificesCommemorationCentennial
Author:J. Neven-Pugh, press release
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“Io ero arrivato a una difesa di reticolati in cui mi sembrò si potesse passare. Attraverso i fili, infatti, v'era un passaggio stretto. Io l'infilai. Ma, fatto qualche passo, trovai lo sbarramento d'un cavallo di frisia. Era impossibile continuare. Mi voltai e vidi soldati della 10a che mi seguivano. Rimasi lì, inchiodato. Dalle trincee, nessuno sparava. In un ampia feritoia, di fronte, scorsi la testa d'un soldato. Egli mi guardava. Io non ne vidi che gli occhi. Vidi solo gli occhi. E mi sembrò ch'egli non avesse che occhi, talmente mi parvero grandi. Lentamente, io feci dei passi indietro, senza voltarmi, sempre sotto lo sguardo di quei grandi occhi,”

WarFirst World War
Book:Un Anno sull'Altipiano
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“Kamerad, ich wollte dich nicht töten. Sprängst du noch einmal hier hinein, ich täte es nicht, wenn auch du vernünftig wärest. Aber du warst mir vorher nur ein Gedanke, eine Kombination, die in meinem Gehirn lebte und einen Entschluß hervorrief - diese Kombination habe ich erstochen. Ich habe gedacht an deine Handgranaten, an dein Bajonett und deine Waffen - jetzt sehe ich deine Frau und dein Gesicht und das Gemeinsame. Vergib mir, Kamerad! Wir sehen es immer zu spät. Warum sagt man uns nicht immer wieder, daß ihr ebenso arme Hunde seid wie wir, daß eure Mütter sich ebenso ängstigen wie unsere und daß wir die gleiche Furch vor dem Tode haben und das gleiche Sterben und den gleichen Schmerz -. Vergib mir, Kamerad, wie konntest du mein Feind sein.”

WarEnemyRegretFirst World WarWorld War
Book:Im Westen nichts Neues
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“People wonder what's the matter with the world these days. They forget that all the best fellows, the men who'd have been in their prime now, who'd have been giving us a lead in everything, are dead [in the Great War]. If you could bring 'em all back... hundreds and hundreds of thousands of 'em, you'd soon see the difference they'd make in the place. But they're dead, and a lot of people, very different sort of people, are alive and kicking.”

SacrificeSocial ChangeFirst World WarWwiSocial Decay
Book:Benighted
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“In the complexity of its structure, its kaleidoscope of perspectives, its confrontation with the effects of the First World War, its attentiveness to experience at all life stages and it embrace of linguistic, formal and philosophical 'difficulty', The Weatherhouse is arguably the great Scottish modernist feminist novel of the period.”

FeminismModernismFirst World WarLife StagesScottish LiteratureNan ShepherdThe Weatherhouse
Book:The International Companion to the Scottish Novel
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“The foolishness of the politicians of that era brought on the “First World War” But it was the people that had to fight it. The trenches that the soldiers dug and the craters from the artillery are still visible to visitors. The cemeteries where the fallen are buried, show that the majority were just young men, whereas the politicians, who were to blame, had mostly white hair and did little or no fighting! To secure our future we must read and learn from history!”

World HistoryCaptain Hank BrackerFirst World WarHorrors Of War
Author:Captain Hank Bracker, "Suppressed I Rise"
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“This place is dead,' he thought. The world he had come from was alive. Its incessant din, the movement, the vibration that never ceased from end to end of the war-swept territory, were earnest of a human activity so enormous that the mind spun with thinking of it. Over there one felt oneself part of something big. One was making the earth. Here there were men, no doubt, leading their hapless, misdirected, individual lives; but they were a people unaware, out of it. He felt almost angry that Lindsay should be dwelling among them. He knew from her letters that she was in Fetter-Rothnie, and, convalescent, had written her that he would come to Knapperley; but that her young fervour should be shut in this dead world annoyed him. She was too far from life. The reconstruction of the universe would not begin in this dark hole, inhabited by old wives and ploughmen.”

ReconstructionFirst World WarAberdeenshireWestern FrontGarry ForbesFetter RothnieLindsay Lorimer
Book:The Weatherhouse
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“… the white stain of chalk mixed with the clay topsoil zigzagging across the freshly-turned earth, the tell-tale marks of the German trenches from which ***** had been enfiladed. Fifty ploughings and fifty harvests had failed to erase those marks, so maybe they were etched into the land for all time, just like the spadework of the ancient peoples which the archaeologists studied with such fervour.”

Great WarFirst World WarWw1Trench Warfare
Book:Other Paths to Glory
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“The Armless Tics by Stewart Stafford Never again, the blustering brass said, Inked in blood, my generation dead, Human meat carved with lunatic aplomb, No cowering allowed from gun or bomb. Lice, rats, and mud—war zeal’s reality. Trench foot and poisoned-gas lethality, Churned hellscape, where no man can be, Scribbling letters home to preserve sanity. The artillery’s heartbeat, now silent, aghast, Shells raining on future, present, and past, On a last keepsake bullet, I etched “11-11”, Through influenza, faint prayers to Heaven. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

World War IPtsdWorld War 1First World WarRemembrance DayArmistice DaySpanish FluWar PoetryTrench WarfareThe Great War
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“These moments of nocturnal prowling leave an indelible impression. Eyes and ears are tensed to the maximum, the rustling approach of strange feet in the tall grass in an unutterably menacing thing. Your breath comes in shallow bursts; you have to force yourself to stifle any panting or wheezing. There is a little mechanical click as the safety-catch of your pistol is taken off; the sound cuts straight through your nerves. Your teeth are grinding on the fuse-pin of the hand-grenade. The encounter will be short and murderous. You tremble with two contradictory impulses: the heightened awareness of the huntsmen, and the terror of the quarry. You are a world to yourself, saturated with the appalling aura of the savage landscape.”

TrenchesFirst World WarWwiNature Of WarSoldieringWar PsychologyStorm Of Steel
Author:Ernst Jünger
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“The [Second World] war may thus have acted as a forcing-bed, bringing to somewhat speedier development what was already securely rooted in the circumstances of our nation; and in this sense it may, perhaps, be said that: "The Scottish Renaissance was conceived in the First World War and sprang into lusty life in the Second World War.”

ScotlandSecond World WarFirst World WarScottish Renaissance
Book:The New Scotland: 17 Chapters on Scottish Reconstruction
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“Throughout the war, it was always my endeavour to view my opponent without animus, and to form an opinion of him as a man on the basis of the courage he showed. I would always try and seek him out in combat and kill him, and I expected nothing else from him. But never did I entertain mean thoughts of him. When prisoners fell into my hands, later on, I felt responsible for their safety, and would always do everything in my power for them.”

First World WarWwiNature Of WarSoldieringStorm Of Steel
Book:Storm of Steel
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“In the space of a single year, a crumbling rural village had sprouted an army town, like a great parasitical growth. The former peacetime aspect of the place was barely discernible. The village pond was where the dragoons watered their horses, infantry exercised in the orchards, soldiers lay in the meadows sunning themselves. All the peacetime institutions collapsed, only what was needed for war remained. Hedges and fences were broken or simply torn down for easier access, and everywhere there were large signs giving directions to military traffic. While roofs caved in, and furniture was gradually used up as firewood, telephone lines and electricity cables were installed. Cellars were extended outwards and downwards to make bomb shelters for the residents; the removed earth was dumped in the gardens. The village no longer knew any demarcations or distinctions between thine and mine.”

InstitutionsFranceFirst World WarWwiErnst JüngerNature Of WarStorm Of Steel
Book:Storm of Steel
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“В тила корупцията и спекулата бяха достигнали нечувани размери, страшната скъпотия обиждаше дори офицерите, които можеха да купят с едномесечната си заплата само десет макари конци или една тенекия газ. В това време правителствените вестници се пълнеха с патриотични статии и позиви, министрите даваха успокоителни изявления и надежди за мир, а главната квартира тайно подготвяше офанзива с изтощените войници, които боси трябваше да атакуват заетите от неприятеля височини.”

HungerCorruptionFirst World WarBulgariaвойнаемилиян станев
Book:Крадецът на праскови
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“Louis B. Mayer is one of those with a claim to posessing the equation... he began to buy up nickelodeon arcades in the years before the First World War in and around Boston. He had noticed that people liked going into the dark to see the light... the appeal of the movies is beyond the sensible, rational or the hard-working. Going into the dark, afte centuries of progress in which mankind has staggered toward artificial light, smacks of delicious perversity.”

PeopleWorldYearsFirstsWarHardLightFilmDarkProgressMankindCenturyHard WorkHollywoodClaimsRationalAppealsWar Of The WorldsSensibleArtificialWorld War IDeliciousEquationsBostonSmackFirst World WarPerversityArcadesMayerNickelodeonArtificial Light
Author:Edward Jay Epstein
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“... there was the first Balkan war and the second Balkan war and then there was the first world war. It is extraordinary how having done a thing once you have to do it again, there is the pleasure of coincidence and there is the pleasure of repetition, and so there is the second world war, and in between there was the Abyssinian war and the Spanish civil war.”

WorldFirstsWarDonePleasureHistoryExtraordinaryWar Of The WorldsCivil WarWorld War ICoincidenceRepetitionSecond World WarFirst World WarBalkansSpanish Civil War
Book:Wars I have seen
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“During the first World War women in the United States had a chance to try their capacities in wider fields of executive leadershipin industry. Must we always wait for war to give us opportunity? And must the pendulum always swing back in the busy world of work and workers during times of peace?”

WorldGivingTryingFirstsWarStatesOpportunityWaitingChanceUnitedUnited StatesFieldsIndustryCapacityWorkersBusyWar Of The WorldsExecutivesSwingsPendulumsFirst World War
Author:Mary Barnett Gilson
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“All the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.”

PeopleMenWorldWayFirstsHumansStillsWarRememberNationsVoiceHoursHuman BeingsSilenceMillionsMinutesMankindMonthsHundredSilentOne WayWar Of The WorldsSpokesOld ManRemember WhenBattlefieldsEighteenNineteenVoice Of GodFirst World WarBreakfast Of ChampionsArmisticeArmistice DayEleventh Hour
Author:Kurt Vonnegut
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“I always found the extraordinary loss of life in the First World War very moving. I remember learning about it as a very young child, as an eight- or nine-year-old, asking my teachers what poppies were for. Every year the teachers would suddenly wear these red paper flowers in their lapels, and I would say 'What does that mean?'”

WorldYearsFirstsMeanChildrenDoeWarRememberMovingYoungFoundLossTeacherFlowerPaperRedAskingExtraordinaryEightNineWar Of The WorldsYoung ChildrenNine YearsPoppiesFirst World WarVery MovingPaper Flowers
Author:Tom Hiddleston
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“If you look at the First World War, the Kaiser was actually, actively buying a lot of the armaments from Britain! in the years, in the run-up to the First World War. And I mean, there was a connection there. He was, indeed, Queen Victoria's grandson. You know, they were all related, all these royal families.”

IfsKnowsWorldYearsFirstsLooksMeanWarRunningConnectionsQueensWar Of The WorldsRelatedBritainBuyingRoyalVictoriaRoyal FamilyArmamentFirst World WarGrandson
Author:Jacqueline Winspear
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“I'm fascinated by the First World War because it was supposed to be the war to end all wars, and it was the biggest conflagration that this particular planet had seen. There was a lot of talk about utopia and how it was possible, and then, because of these events that for one reason or another couldn't be stopped, the idea of utopia went out the window.”

WorldFirstsIdeasWarEndsReasonEventsParticularPlanetsWindowSupposed To BeWar Of The WorldsFascinatedUtopiaFirst World War
Author:Glenn Close
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“The idea that Christianity is basically a religion of moral improvement... has its roots in the liberal Protestantism of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century... It is this stereotype which continues to have influence today... But then came the First World War... What had gone wrong was that the idea of sin had been abandoned by liberal Christianity as some kind of unnecessary hangover from an earlier and less enlightened period in Christian history.”

WorldFirstsKindIdeasWarTodayChristianSinMoralChristianityGoneInfluenceCenturyPeriodsLateRootsImprovementWar Of The WorldsEnlightenedAbandonedUnnecessaryStereotypeTwentieth CenturyNineteenth CenturyHangoverProtestantismFirst World War
Author:Alister E. McGrath
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“After the First World War, Germany was trying to build a democracy. Then when the Reichstag, the legislature, was burned down in 1933, this was seen as such an emergency that human rights had to be suspended. The attack on the World Trade Towers has allowed Bush and his gang to do anything. What are we to do now? I say when there's a code red, we should all run around like chickens with our heads cut off. I don't feel that we are in any great danger.”

WorldFeelsShouldTryingFirstsHumansWarRunningDemocracyCuttingRightsDangerRedTradeHuman RightsCodeWar Of The WorldsGermanyChickensBurnedTowersEmergenciesGangLegislatureSuspendedWorld TradeFirst World War
Author:Kurt Vonnegut
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“Perhaps this is an area where every generation starts from scratch. Although the crisis of the First World War inaugurated an especially strong period of disillusion with regard to the optimism of the previous age, the pattern has repeated itself in many ways in more recent times, e.g., the loss of faith in politics as a means of advancing human well-being. And perhaps this also has to do with basic elements in growing up.”

WorldWayFirstsHumansWellsMeanWarAgeStrongLossGrowing UpGrowingGenerationsPeriodsElementsAreasOptimismRegardCrisisPatternsWell BeingWar Of The WorldsWorld War IScratchesAdvancingDisillusionFirst World WarLoss Of Faith
Author:George Pattison
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