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
Related Leaves from the vine, Falling so slow Like fragile tiny shells Drifting in the foam GENERAL IROH People are not an interruption of our business. People are our business. A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes. It is hard to look up to a leader who keeps his ear to the ground. The most wasted day of all is that in which we have not laughed. The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in men. Ordinary people see no diff... The intelligence is proved not by ease of learning, but by understanding what we learn. Communication is something so simple and difficult that we can never put it in simple words. Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads Let love through good deeds show. How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. In everyone's heart stirs a great homesickness. That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it. Our wisdom comes usually from our experience, and our experience comes largely from our experience. One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first ti... To reprove small faults within due vehemence, is as absurd as if a man should take a great hammer to... Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light. Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of... Some families can trace their ancestors back three hundred years, but can't tell you where their chi... A recent survey was said to prove that the people we Americans most admire are our politicians and d... If a man defrauds you one time, he is a rascal; if he does it twice, you are a fool. Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog. Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admired when it ... Freedom also includes the right to mismanage your own affairs. Let your friends be the friends of your deliberate choice. The man who has strong opinions and always says what he thinks is courageous - and friendless. Friendship is love with understanding. So few people think. When we find one who really does, we call him a genius Your life can't go according to plan if you have no plan. Practicing the Golden Rule is not a sacrifice; it is an investment. Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue. An expert gossiper knows how much to leave out of a conversation To live so that you would not be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip, is to have li... Gossip is sometimes referred to as halitosis of the mind If you would attain greatness, think no little thoughts. We are born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy. People are changed, not by coercion or intimidation, but by example. Children are natural mimics; they act like their parents in spite of every effort to teach them good... The guilty catch themselves. Good habits are formed; bad habits we fall into. If happiness could be brought, few of us could pay the price. Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have. Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. Hatred is a boomerang which is sure to hit you harder than the one at whom you throw it. Hate pollutes the mind. If we miraculously became the people we hate, how lovable we would find ourselves. To feel "fit as a fiddle" you must tone down your middle. Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it. A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, "And whom did you consult before coming t... "Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you." It is impossible to make wisdom hereditary. Honesty is a question of right or wrong, not a matter of policy. It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it. It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside. Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the t... Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for ... Humor - the perfect relationship of the parts to the whole. Our five senses are incomplete without the sixth - a sense of humor. "What made the deepest impression upon you?" inquired a friend one day of Lincoln, "when you stood i... It isn't easy for an idea to squeeze itself into a head filled with prejudice. Too many people run out of ideas long before they run out of words. Imagination is the pontoon bridge making way for the timid feet of reason. Practical observation commonly consists of collecting a few facts and loading them with guesses. Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and u... Having supplied them with names, omnipotence, justice, knowledge, Providence, - what are they? A good laugh is sunshine in a house. When you laugh, be sure to laugh at what people do and not at what people are. One look around us ought to show that all our arbitrary measures and bounds have been clamped on us ... No punishment of the unrighteous has ever been too severe in the eyes of the righteous. Why keep on enacting laws when we already have more than we can break. The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-re... Advice is the only commodity on the market where the supply always exceeds the demand. Successful men follow the same advice they prescribe for others. You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea Old age may seem a long way off. But on the day it doesn't, it will be too late to do anything about... Age withers only the outside. Where ambition ends happiness begins. The best answer to answer to anger is silence. The size of a man is measured by the size of the thing that makes him angry. A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about. People who know the least always argue the most. If you look for the positive things in life; you will find them. What we are doing at the moment is more that just one thing added to the rest; it is a memoir. Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes The human mind must believe in something, so why not let it believe what it does believe. He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance It is better to live richly than to die rich. On his examination paper a boy wrote, "A natural death is where you die by yourself without a doctor... Many things are worse than defeat,and compromise with evil is one of them. Desire for security keeps littleness little and threatens the great with smallness. We cannot be too earnest, too persistent, too determined, about living superior to the herd-instinct... A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it. Shortchange your education now and you may be short of change the rest of your life. Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them Catch your people doing something right and let them know you appreciate it. Create the kind of climate in your organization where personal growth is expected, recognized and re... Enthusiasm is very good lubrication for the mind. Enthusiasm is that kindling spark which marks the difference between the leaders in every activity a... There are many roads to hate, but envy is the shortest of them all.
More Siegfried Sassoon
In me the tiger sniffs the rose. SIEGFRIED SASSOON I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong thes... SIEGFRIED SASSOON I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. SIEGFRIED SASSOON I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been... SIEGFRIED SASSOON Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin they think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives. SIEGFRIED SASSOON Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows. SIEGFRIED SASSOON I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe tha... SIEGFRIED SASSOON Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin they think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives SIEGFRIED SASSOON Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows. SIEGFRIED SASSOON Man,it seemed,had been created to jab the life out of Germans. SIEGFRIED SASSOON I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insinceriti... SIEGFRIED SASSOON Man, it seemed, had been created to jab the life out of Germans. SIEGFRIED SASSOON Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled, And one arm bent across your sullen cold E... SIEGFRIED SASSOON The fact is that five years ago I was, as near as possible, a different person to what I am tonight.... SIEGFRIED SASSOON I don't use names or captions for my many portraits of politicians and authors for newspapers. T... SIEGFRIED WOLDHEK Even the dullest bird or face becomes interesting when you give it a good look in the wild/flesh. Th... SIEGFRIED WOLDHEK Bring out the eyes. VIDAL SASSOON I kept thinking I would be spending my life up to my elbows in shampoo. VIDAL SASSOON Judaism is important to me from a tribal point of view. VIDAL SASSOON I just consider being one of the luckiest people in the sense that creativity came to me and it flow... VIDAL SASSOON I got a telegraph from my mother who said that my step-father had had a heart attack, come home and ... VIDAL SASSOON Capri on the Amalfi Coast in Italy is my ultimate holiday destination. VIDAL SASSOON I don't sort of sit in a chair and pompously feel proud of myself about all the things we might ... VIDAL SASSOON From my point of view, there is a tremendous amount to be said for secular humanism. VIDAL SASSOON Hair excited me. As the old ways - backcombing, rollers and rigidity - went out of the window, I sta... VIDAL SASSOON Everything about morality and obligations I owe to football. VIDAL SASSOON If you get hold of a head of hair on somebody you've never seen before, cut beautiful shapes, cu... VIDAL SASSOON There were so many pretty girls coming into the salon as clients, and others working in the salon. A... VIDAL SASSOON Most people have excellent necks. Now they cover them with curtains, which is kind of ridiculous. Bu... VIDAL SASSOON The essence is, what can we do next? And will it be good? VIDAL SASSOON Hairdressing in general hasn't been given the kudos it deserves. It's not recognised by enou... VIDAL SASSOON If you have a sense of style and purpose and will you don't want to compromise. VIDAL SASSOON You either create something and you keep it a secret and you die with it, or you can benefit the cra... VIDAL SASSOON You must always do what you feel is right. VIDAL SASSOON I'll never forget one morning I walked in and I had a hell of a bruise - it had been a difficult... VIDAL SASSOON It's okay saying sorry, but when you are drunk you say what you really feel. VIDAL SASSOON A working woman could save a few shillings a week, and then every five weeks she'd come in and w... VIDAL SASSOON I was all about my thoughts, my work, my inspiration. I was always in hair. VIDAL SASSOON If you don't look good, we don't look good. VIDAL SASSOON Hairdressers are a wonderful breed. You work one-on-one with another human being and the object is t... VIDAL SASSOON To me hair dressing means shape. It's very important that the foundations should be right. VIDAL SASSOON Hair is another name for sex. VIDAL SASSOON We learned to put discipline in the haircuts by using actual geometry, actual architectural shapes a... VIDAL SASSOON Women were going back to work, they were assuming their own power. They didn't have time to sit ... VIDAL SASSOON The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. VIDAL SASSOON The only place where success comes before work is a dictionary. VIDAL SASSOON For nine years I worked to change what was hairdressing then into a geometric art form with color, p... VIDAL SASSOON I came home after a year and although my profession was only hairdressing, I knew I could change it. VIDAL SASSOON My mother had a premonition and she felt that hairdressing would be very very good for me. VIDAL SASSOON It's hard to give advice. There are so many people, how do you give major advice to a group of p... VIDAL SASSOON Handwriting is an imprint of the self on the page. DR. ROSEMARY SASSOON