Richard Aldington Quotes & Sayings

All nations teach their children to be "patriotic", and abuse the other nations for fostering nationalism." ("Sacrifice Post") — Richard Aldington

Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill. — Richard Aldington

No man who has managed to keep out of an office can be called a failure in life. — Richard Aldington

By the sense of mystery I understand the experience of certain places and times when one's whole nature seems to be in touch with a presence, a genius loci, a potency. — Richard Aldington

I began to write what I called 'rhythms' ie unrhymed pieces with no formal metrical scheme where the rhythm was created by a kind if inner chant..Later I was told I was writing 'free verse' or Vers libre. — Richard Aldington

Millions of human vermin swarm sweating along the night-arched cavernous roads. (Happily rapid chemical processes will disintegrate them all. — Richard Aldington

Forgetting is woman's first and greatest art. — Richard Aldington

Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. — Richard Aldington

We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret.
We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift, salute for the last time those lines of pitiable crosses, those solitary mounds, those unknown graves, and turn to live our lives out as we may.
Which of us were fortunate
who can tell? For you there is silence and cold twilight drooping in awful desolation over those motionless lands. For us sunlight and the sound of women's voices, song and hope and laughter, despair, gaiety, love
life.
Lost terrible silent comrades, we, who might have died, salute you. — Richard Aldington

We must grow out of religion. It is either bugaboo, formalism, or hysteria. Besides, what proof is there that "the churches" know more about "God" than the Cockney sentry on duty outside the camp? We have only their say-so. — Richard Aldington

I dream of silent verses where the rhyme glides noiseless as an oar. — Richard Aldington

I have sat here happy in the gardens, Watching the still pool and the reeds And the dark clouds ... But though I greatly delight In these and the water lilies, That which sets me nighest to weeping Is the rose and white colour of the smooth flag-stones, And the pale yellow grasses Among them. — Richard Aldington

The casualty lists went on appearing for a long time after the Armistice - last spasms of Europe's severed arteries. — Richard Aldington

Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you. Exploration is experiencing what you have not experienced before. How can there be any adventure, any exploration, if you let somebody else - above all, a travel bureau - arrange everything before-hand? — Richard Aldington

Cats are like donkeys and camels, they won't ever quite give in to human tyranny, they won't try to imitate the human soul. — Richard Aldington

A little common sense, goodwill, and a tiny dose of unselfishness could make this goodly earth into an earthly paradise. — Richard Aldington

At night, the moon, a pregnant woman, walks cautiously over the slippery heavens. — Richard Aldington

How on earth did it come about that all the things denounced in the Gospels are violently defended by the Christian sects? — Richard Aldington