The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston Quotes

“the inmost silences of the heart that we know the world for what it is, and ourselves for what the world has made us.”
― Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston

“In fact they make me feel that Dickens was right when he wrote so warm-heartedly about “the poor”. They are only a part of the huge dun-coloured mass of victims which passes through the shambles of war into the gloom of death where even generals “automatically revert to the rank of private”. But in the patience and simplicity of their outward showing they seem like one soul. They are the tradition of human suffering and endurance, stripped of all the silly self-glorifications and embellishments by which human society seeks to justify its conventions.”
― Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston

“But I was rewarded by an intense memory of men whose courage had shown me the power of the human spirit—that spirit which could withstand the utmost assault. Such men had inspired me to be at my best when things were very bad, and they outweighed all the failures. Against the background of the War and its brutal stupidity those men had stood glorified by the thing which sought to destroy them.…”
― Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston

“my thoughts warned me that my second time out in France had altered my outlook (if such a confused condition of mind could be called an outlook). I began to feel that it was my privilege to be bitter about my war experiences; and my attitude toward civilians implied that they couldn’t understand and that it was no earthly use trying to explain things to them.”
― Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston

“1917 I was only beginning to learn that life, for the majority of the population, is an unlovely struggle against unfair odds, culminating in a cheap funeral.”
― Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston

“No; one couldn’t reckon the effect of the war on people by weeks and months. I’d noticed that boys under twenty stood it worst, especially when the weather was bade Mud and boredom and discomfort seemed to take all the guts out of them. If an officer crumpled up, Kinjack sent him home as useless, with a confidential report. Several such officers were usually drifting about at the Depot, and most of them ended up with safe jobs in England. But if a man became a dud in the ranks, he just remained where he was until he was killed or wounded.”
― Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston

“Other wounded men were crawling back. Among them was a grey-haired lance-corporal, who had one of his feet almost blown off; I half carried him in, and when he was sitting on the firestep he said: “Thank God Almighty for this; I’ve been waiting eighteen months for it, and now I can go home.”
― Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston

“above ground there was the muffled boom of something bursting. And two more officers had been killed. Not in our company though. The Germans had put up another mine that afternoon without doing us any damage. Their trenches were only a hundred and fifty yards from ours; in some places less than fifty. It was a sector of the line which specialized in mines; more than half of our 750-yard frontage was pitted with mine-craters, some of them fifty feet deep.…”
― Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston