Robin

“Suicide in the trenches:

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

* * * * *

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, The War Poems

“If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over.”
― Henrik Ibsen

“If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina