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World War One Quotes

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World War 1

World War One Quotes

“Men as a rule do everything at women's expense, from their first day to the last. They come into the world at our expense, and at our expense they're able to do whatever work they please uninterrupted. We keep their homes pleasant fro them and provide them with all creature comforts, We satisfy both their loves and their lusts, and at our expense again they have the children they desire. When they's ill we nurse them; they recover at our expense; and when they die, we lay them out and see that they leave the world respectably. If ever we can get anything out of them, or use them in any way that make things the least bit more even, it's not only our right to do it, it's a duty we owe to ourselves." [...]"really Virginia, to hear you talk one would think you'd suffered a dreadful injury at the hands of some man or other- and yet you're always telling me that all your best friends were men until the war came". "So they were," said Virginia. "but all my friends were absolute exceptions to the general run of men".”

MenFriendshipFeminismMen And WomenWorld War OneVera BrittainSocial ConventionsThe Dark Time
Book:The Dark Tide
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“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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“I do not attach too much attention to words. I enlisted, and as several times already in my life, I was prepared to follow the consequences of my actions. But I did not realize that the Legion would make me drink this chalice to the dregs and that these dregs would make me drunk, and that by taking a cynical pleasure in discrediting and debasing myself, I would end up by breaking free of everything to conquer my liberty as a man. To be. To be a man. And discover solitude. That is what I owe to the Legion, and to the old lascars of Africa, soldiers NCOs, officers, who came to lead us and mix with us as comrades, these desperadoes, these survivors of God knows what colonial epics, but who were all men, all. And that made it well worth the risk of death to meet these damned souls, who smelled of the galleys and were covered with tattoos. None of them ever let us down, and each one was willing to sacrifice himself, for nothing, for kudos, because he was drunk, for a challenge, for a laugh, to stick it to someone by God. They were tough and their discipline was of iron. These were professionals. And the profession of a man of war is an abominable thing and leaves scars, like poetry. You have it or you don’t. One cannot cheat because nothing wears out the soul more and stigmatizes the face (and secretly the heart) of man and is more vain than to kill, and to begin again.”

WarSolitudeTransformationSoldierManWorld War OneComraderyForeign LegionBlaise Cendrars
Book:The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force
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“I was once told in Sunday school that a church tower reaches up skywards because it is a promise of Heaven. Church towers are different in France. It was the first thing I noticed when I came here, when I changed my world of home for my world of war. In comparison the church towers at home seem almost squat, hiding themselves away in the folds of the fields. Here there are no folds in the fields, only wide open plains, scarcely a hill in sight. And instead of church towers they have spires that thrust themselves skywards like a child putting his hand up in class, longing to be noticed. But God, if there is one, notices nothing here. He has long since abandoned this place and all of us who live in it.”

SadWorld War OneMelancholicTommo Peaceful
Book:Private Peaceful
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“Daphne tried to convey to him that the likelihood of degrees for women at Oxford was a matter for satisfaction, perhaps, but hardly for excitement or ratification. Women's accomplishments in the University had long been equal, if not superior, to men's; degrees were not a privilege, they were simply what women deserved - their due, their right. She became very animated as she argued on this topic.”

WomenFeminismWorld War OneThe Dark TideVera BrittainWomen S EducationWomen S Freedom
Book:The Dark Tide
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“Bells Screamed all off key, wrangling together as they collided in midair, horns and whistles mingled shrilly with cries of human distress; sulphur-colored light ex-ploded through the black windowpane and flashed away in darkness. Miranda waking from a dreamless sleep asked without expecting an answer, “What is happening?” for there was a bustle of voices and footsteps in the corridor, and a sharpness in the air; the far clamour went on, a furious exasperated shrieking like a mob in revolt. The light came on, and Miss Tanner said in a furry voice, “Hear that? They’re celebrating . It’s the Armistice. The war is over, my dear.” Her hands trembled. She rattled a spoon in a cup, stopped to listen, held the cup out to Miranda. From the ward for old bedridden women down the hall floated a ragged chorus of cracked voices singing, “My country, ’tis of thee…” Sweet land… oh terrible land of this bitter world where the sound of rejoicing was a clamour of pain, where ragged tuneless old women, sitting up waiting for their evening bowl of cocoa, were singing, “Sweet land of Liberty-” “Oh, say, can you see?” their hopeless voices were asking next, the hammer strokes of metal tongues drowning them out. “The war is over,” said Miss Tanner, her underlap held firmly, her eyes blurred. Miranda said, “Please open the window, please, I smell death in here.”

DeathWorld War OneInfluenzaWw1Southern WritersArmisticeFemale Writers1918Short NovelsKatherine Anne PorterSpanish Influenza1918 InfluenzaPale Horse Pale Rider
Book:Pale Horse, Pale Rider
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“It was, of course, precisely this flippant attitude, one Lawrence seemed determined to flaunt both in his correspondence and in person, that so incensed his military superiors. But his defiance of soldierly protocol also underscored a deeper truth: Lawrence was fundamentally not of them, and was becoming less so all the time.”

DefianceLonerOthernessMaverickWorld War OneTe Lawrence
Book:Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East
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“We set to work to bury people. We pushed them into the sides of the trench but bits of them kept getting uncovered and sticking out, like people in a badly made bed. Hands were the worst; they would escape from the sand, pointing, begging - even waving! There was one which we all shook when we passed, saying, 'Good morning', in a posh voice. Everybody did it. The bottom of the trench was springy like a mattress because of all the bodies underneath.”

CorpsesTrenchesWwiWorld War OneLeonard Thompson
Book:Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village
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“Rats, the only creatures that seemed to flourish in the trenches, were quite brave and were often a foot long (not including the tail), the size of a small cat. They grew fat on the corpses in No Man’s Land and were known to bite sleeping soldiers’ faces and gather around the eating areas. The French left the rats alone. Like a canary in a coal mine, the rats were a warning that gas shells had been fired. At the slightest whiff of gas, the large rats flipped feet up, dead. The Americans hated them too much to leave them alone. They bludgeoned the rats with shovels and rifle butts or shot them with their side arms.”

World War IRatsTrenchesWorld War 1World War One
Book:Courage: Roy Blanchard's Journey in America's Forgotten War
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“The ruins of Chief Azul's house can still be seen to the right as your enter the town of Sacaton from the north--a two story structure with the roof fallen in. In front, across the road to the south is a monument which was put up in memory of the first Indian killed in World War One who was a Pima Indian from our tribe. [page 51, Progress]”

MemorialArizonaWwiWorld War OneSouthwestIndiansPimaO OdhamNative American WarSacaton
Book:A Pima Remembers
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“It was no easy task advancing through No Man’s Land, especially without making a sound. Barbed wire was typically passed through dark paint to keep it from reflecting light and then loosely strung between spaced wooden posts to provide an effective high obstacle. Strung low and tight were alarm traps—wire attached to some noisemaker that alerted the guards to movement. Sometimes, the Americans made wire entanglements by wrapping barbed wire around a long, rectangular wood frame behind the lines. These could be quickly rolled out into No Man’s Land after an artillery barrage had cut a wide hole in the wire. The wire obstacles added to the chaotic and dangerous morass. Due to constant shelling, there was an irregular pattern of shell holes, thick mud, and the rotting remains of men and animals.”

World War IWorld War OneNo Man S Land
Book:Courage: Roy Blanchard's Journey in America's Forgotten War
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“World War I that ended almost one hundred years ago, following the Armistice on November 11, 1918. The Paris Peace Conference was held to determine the terms under which this devastating war was concluded. A war that was fought for insane reasons and brought devastation to so many families only ended when The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. It had been a war that was brought on by inept bureaucrats and it was “The Treaty of Versailles” that concluded the war between Germany and the Allied Powers. This treaty required Germany to disarm, make extensive territorial concessions, and pay reparations to the Allies. The fact that Germany was required to pay unrealistic reparations during difficult times was the primary reason that the Second World War was fought a little over twenty years later by bringing Adolf Hitler onto the world stage!”

WarWorld HistoryWorld War OneTreaty Of VersaillesParis Peace Conference
Author:Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater One"
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“HYPERAROUSAL After a traumatic experience, the human system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment. Physiological arousal continues unabated. In this state of hyerarousal, which is the first cardinal symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, the traumatized person startles easily, reacts irritably to small provocations, and sleeps poorly. Kardiner propsed that "the nucleus of the [traumatic] neurosis is physioneurosis."8 He believed that many of the symptoms observed in combat veterans of the First World War-startle reactions, hyperalertness, vigilance for the return of danger, nightmares, and psychosomatic complaints-could be understood as resulting from chronic arousal of the autonomic nervous system. He also interpreted the irritability and explosively aggressive behavior of traumatized men as disorganized fragments of a shattered "fight or flight" response to overwhelming danger.”

MilitaryTraumaAggressionPtsdNeurosisTraumatizedWorld War 1Post Traumatic Stress DisorderWorld War OnePosttraumatic Stress DisorderFight Or FlightCombat PtsdIrritabilityHypervigilanceAggressive BehaviorFight Or Flight ResponseHyperarousal
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“These are the figures of steel whose eagle eyes dart between whirling propellers to pierce the cloud; who dare the hellish crossing through fields of roaring craters, gripped in the chaos of tank engines ... men relentlessly saturated with the spirit of battle, men whose urgent wanting discharges itself in a single concentrated and determined release of energy. As I watch them noiselessly slicing alleyways into barbed wire, digging steps to storm outward, synchronizing luminous watches, finding the North by the stars, the recognition flashes: this is the new man. The pioneers of storm, the elect of central Europe. A whole new race, intelligent, strong, men of will ... supple predators straining with energy. They will be architects building on the ruined foundations of the world.”

MasculinityWorld War OneStormtroopers
Book:Der Kampf als inneres Erlebnis
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“. Leaving the city behind, they entered the wasted countryside. Large shell holes, jagged stumps of full-grown trees, and gas residue clinging to puddles all pointed to the power of modern warfare. No living thing remained. The odor of rotting human corpses filled what was left of the woods: the dead wearing the uniforms of France, Germany, and the US.”

World War IWorld War 1World War OneWestern Front
Book:Courage: Roy Blanchard's Journey in America's Forgotten War
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“The column swung into single file, with space between companies and platoons. Marching until 3:00 a.m., they stopped in a small forest, put their heavy packs on the ground, and unrolled their packs. The woods were thick. In the blackness, Roy could only see a few feet in front of him in the dark, and there wasn’t any acceptable cover. He had just put his pack down, when it started. A distant set of krumps went off somewhere in the distance and, moments later, the screaming shells descended, men yelled, and wood shrapnel flew from exploding trees. Roy hit the deck, grabbed his helmet, and held the fear back behind his clenched teeth. In the flash of the exploding shells, he saw his comrades and friends lying still, small, some crouched behind trees, some cursing, all helpless. Bigger shells came, shaking the landscape like a freight train speeding past a rickety station. Everything shook with diabolical red flashes and deafening roars. It went on and on, hour after hour.”

World War IWorld War 1World War OneWestern Front
Book:Courage: Roy Blanchard's Journey in America's Forgotten War
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“While they continued to march toward the sounds of the guns, Roy noticed fear behind the eyes of some of his fellow soldiers. Death and destruction surrounded them. Corpses in the ditches, wounded on stretchers, shell holes were everywhere. They hadn’t even reached the front lines yet.”

World War IWorld War 1World War OneWestern Front
Book:Courage: Roy Blanchard's Journey in America's Forgotten War
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“The most important thing I would learn in school was that almost everything I would learn in school would be utterly useless. When I was fifteen I knew the principal industries of the Ruhr Valley, the underlying causes of World War One and what Peig Sayers had for her dinner every day...What I wanted to know when I was fifteen was the best way to chat up girls. That is what I still want to know.”

KnowsWorldWayWantStillsImportantWarWould BeWantedSchoolGirlCausesIndustryImportant ThingsDinnerBest WayUselessWar Of The WorldsValleysPrincipalFifteenWorld War One
Book:The secret world of the Irish male
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“The pioneer labor historian John Commons was not wrong when he wrote around World War One that exploiting and deepening such tensions as outpacing scientific management among U.S. innovations where bossing was concerned. Amidst the general miseries of proletarianization, workers also learned that one source of meager benefits and protections could lie in claiming a white skin.”

WorldWarLyingWhiteSourceBenefitsConcernedLaborSkinsInnovationManagementMiseryWorkersProtectionWar Of The WorldsTensionHistorianPioneersWorld War OneWhite Skin
Author:David Roediger
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“Wars always evolve over time, don't they? Iraq/Afghanistan is different than Vietnam, and Vietnam was different than Korea, and Korea was different than World War One, and so on. Some things remain the same, of course - one side fighting another over ideology or a patch of ground - but there are some aspects of combat life which differ radically than their predecessors.”

WorldDifferentWarFightingCoursesSidesAspectIraqIdeologyEvolveWar Of The WorldsCombatAfghanistanVietnamKoreaPatchesPredecessorsWorld War One
Author:Dave Abrams
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“World War Two was a world war in space. It spread from Europe to Japan, to the Soviet Union, etc. World War Two was quite different from World War One which was geographically limited to Europe. But in the case of the Gulf War, we are dealing with a war which is extremely local in space, but global in time, since it is the first 'live' war.”

WorldFirstsTwoDifferentWarSpaceCasesEuropeUnionsSpreadLocalsWar Of The WorldsEtcJapanSovietWorld War ISoviet UnionGulf WarWorld War TwoWorld War One
Author:Paul Virilio
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“In the time of my parents, before World War One, most people who came to New Zealand from Europe were the more enterprising people; the people who were stronger mentally. It takes a certain amount of imagination to make a life on the other side of the world, the same imagination it takes to climb the tallest mountain.”

PeopleWorldWarCertainParentSidesImaginationAmountMountainEuropeStrongerWar Of The WorldsClimbsNew ZealandWorld War OneEnterprising
Author:Maurice Wilkins
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“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

WarStatesHatePeaceHistoryMilitaryBattleI HateArmySoldierStupidityCombatWorld War IiAnti WarAntiwarWorld War ISurvivedWwiiBrutalityWorld War 2FutilityPeace WarGreat WarNo WarWorld War 1Just WarWorld War TwoFighting BattlesGreat MilitaryWorld War OneWar VeteranMilitary SoldierSoldiers At WarUnited States MilitaryGreatest MilitaryGreat BattleMy SoldierMilitary VeteranUnited States ArmyUnnecessary WarWars And BattlesPreventive WarEvils Of WarCombat VeteransDixie Chicks
Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower
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