Wilfred Owen Quotes

Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.

All theological lore is becoming distasteful to me.

The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

All a poet can do today is warn.

No-man's land under snow is like the face of the moon: chaotic, crater ridden, uninhabitable, awful, the abode of madness.

Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

I, too, saw God through mud - The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled. War brought more glory to their eyes than blood, And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

All I ask is to be held above the barren wastes of want.

If I have to be a soldier I must be a good one, anything else is unthinkable

Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland.

Was it for this the clay grew tall? O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory. The old lie: It is sweet and fitting that you should die for your country.

Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold.

Whatever mourns when many leave these shores: Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.

I am only conscious of any satisfaction in Scientific Reading or thinking when it rounds off into a poetical generality and vagueness.

The war affects me less than it ought. But I can do no service to anybody by agitating for news or making dole over the slaughter.

I, too, saw God through mud

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

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.

Walking abroad, one is the admiration of all little boys, and meets an approving glance from every eye of elderly.

Those who, like the beasts, have no such Hope, pass their old age shrouded with an inward gloom.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

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

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.

I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears; and caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts; and buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts; and rusted every bayonet with His tears.

Be bullied, be outraged, by killed, but do not kill.

I find purer philosophy in a Poem than in a Conclusion of Geometry, a chemical analysis, or a physical law

Flying is the only active profession I could ever continue with enthusiasm after the War.

I was a boy when I first realized that the fullest life liveable was a Poet's

The English say, Yours Truly, and mean it. The Italians say, I kiss your feet, and mean, I kick your head.

When I begin to eliminate from the list all those professions which are impossible from a financial point of view and then those which I feel disinclined to-it leaves nothing

A Poem does not grow by jerks. As trees in Spring produce a new ring of tissue, so does every poet put forth a fresh outlay of stuff at the same season.

I don't ask myself, is the life congenial to me? But, am I fitted for, am I called to, the Ministry?

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.

The centuries will burn rich loads With which we groaned, Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids, While songs are crooned: But they will not dream of us poor lads, Left in the ground.

My subject is war, and the pity of war.

All the poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful.

Was it for this the clay grew tall?

Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Heart, you were never hot Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot

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

My soul's a little grief, grappling your chest, To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.

For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping may something have been left, Which must die now.

I thought of all that worked dark pits Of war, and died Digging the rock where Death reputes Peace lies indeed.

Dead men may envy living mites in cheese, Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys, And subdivide, and never come to death.

Children are not meant to be studied, but enjoyed. Only by studying to be pleased do we understand them.

The old happiness is unreturning. Boy's griefs are not so grievous as youth's yearning. Boys have no sadness sadder than our hope.

It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined.