Quotes by Wilfred Owen

“These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.”

“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. M...”

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

“What passing bells for these who die as cattle?Only the monstrous anger of the guns.Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattleCan patter out their hasty orisons.No mockeries now for them; no prayers,...”

“But the old man would not so, but slew his son,And half the seed of Europe, one by one.”

“Escape? There is one unwatched way: your eyes. O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.”

“Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.We laughed, knowing that better men would come,And greater wars: whe...”

“Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.”

“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. Abo...”

“You shall not hear their mirth:You shall not come to think them well contentBy any jest of mine. These men are worthYour tears:You are not worth their merriment.”

“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...”

“And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hidIts bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,And the f...”

“Some say God caught them even before they fell.”

“All a poet can do today is warn.”

“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.”

“He's lost his colour very far from here,Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry”

“Flying is the only active profession I would ever continue with enthusiasm after the War.”

“After all my years of playing soldiers, and then of reading History, I have almost a mania to be in the East, to see fighting, and to serve.”

“Those who have no hope pass their old age shrouded with an inward gloom.”

“My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”