Quotes & Sayings About Sassoon

You never argued with my mother. You couldn't win. — Vidal Sassoon

Who's this - alone with stone and sky? It's only my old dog and I - It's only him; it's only me; Alone with stone and grass and tree. What share we most - we two together? Smells, and awareness of the weather. What is it makes us more than dust? My trust in him; in me his trust. — Siegfried Sassoon

If you look good, we look good. — Vidal Sassoon

Like most ghetto kids I knew it was important to be 'somebody' so I became a good soccer player, because excelling at a sport seemed to make you special. — Vidal Sassoon

54. At Daybreak
I LISTEN for him through the rain,
And in the dusk of starless hours
I know that he will come again;
Loth was he ever to forsake me:
He comes with glimmering of flowers 5
And stir of music to awake me.
Spirit of purity, he stands
As once he lived in charm and grace:
I may not hold him with my hands,
Nor bid him stay to heal my sorrow; 10
Only his fair, unshadowed face
Abides with me until to-morrow. — Siegfried Sassoon

Good hairstylists never die. Vidal Sassoon and Paul Mitchell will always live on. — John Paul DeJoria

As well as being a creative genius, Vidal Sassoon was a formative figure of the Sixties. Along with the Pill and the mini-skirt, his influence was truly liberating. — Mary Quant

When the doubters tell you it can't be done and all kind of tragedies will come your way, I say nonsense. If you can get to the very root of who you are and make something happen from it, my sense tells me you are going to surprise yourself. — Vidal Sassoon

Take good advice, make sure it is good advice, then do it your way. — Vidal Sassoon

Bring out the eyes. — Vidal Sassoon

To put the last point another way, writers such as Graves, Sassoon, and Owen saw the Great War as the disease, but Tolkien saw it as merely the symptom. — John Garth

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen cold
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head ...
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead. — Siegfried Sassoon

I was born in 1928 and by 1931 the Depression was beginning to mount. — Vidal Sassoon

In me the tiger sniffs the rose.
Look in my heart, kind friends, and tremble,
Since there your elements assemble. — Siegfried Sassoon

My mother had a premonition and she felt that hairdressing would be very very good for me. — Vidal Sassoon

I didn't want to die - not before I'd finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow. — Siegfried Sassoon

Life for the majority of the population.
Is an unlovely struggle against unfair odds.
Culminating in a cheap funeral. — Siegfried Sassoon

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows. — Siegfried Sassoon

For it is humanly certain that most of us remember very little of what we have read. To open almost any book a second time is to be reminded that we had forgotten well-nigh everything that the writer told us. Parting from the narrator and his narrative, we retain only a fading impression; and he, as it were, takes the book away from us and tucks it under his arm. — Siegfried Sassoon

But the most gratifying message was a warm-hearted and completely unexpected letter from Robert Graves, who had just been shown Wilfred's latest poems by Sassoon. 'Don't make any mistake, Owen,' Graves wrote, 'you are a damned fine poet already & are going to be more so... you have found a new method... those assonances instead of rhymes are fine - Puff out your chest a little, Owen & be big - for you've more right than most of us... You must help S.S. and R.N. and R.G. to revolutionize English Poetry - So outlive this War. — Dominic Hibberd

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. — Siegfried Sassoon

Let my soul, a shining tree, Silver branches lift towards thee, Where on a hallowed winter's night The clear-eyed angels may alight. — Siegfried Sassoon

Words are fools
Who follow blindly, once they get a lead.
But thoughts are kingfishers that haunt the pools
Of quiet; seldom-seen... — Siegried Sassoon

Hairdressers are a wonderful breed. You work one-on-one with another human being and the object is to make them feel so much better and to look at themselves with a twinkle in their eye. — Vidal Sassoon

Hairdressing in general hasn't been given the kudos it deserves. It's not recognised by enough people as a worthy craft. — Vidal Sassoon

I am not a bit afraid of Siegfried Sassoon. That man can think. I am afraid only of people who cannot think. — Winston Churchill

There were so many pretty girls coming into the salon as clients, and others working in the salon. And I thought, 'Hmm. This is rather nice.' — Vidal Sassoon

Even T.E. Lawrence, who hardly knew the meaning of fear, was by Sassoon's own account, terrified after only five minutes of his driving; 'my methods of turning from side roads into main roads were abrupt in those days' Sassoon added by way of explanation. — Jean Moorcroft Wilson

For me the working of hair is architecture with a human element. — Vidal Sassoon

As regards being dead, however, one of my main consolations has always been that I have the strongest intention of being an extremely active ghost. Let nobody make any mistake about that. — Siegfried Sassoon

Judaism is important to me from a tribal point of view. — Vidal Sassoon

For nine years I worked to change what was hairdressing then into a geometric art form with color, perm without setting which had never been done before. — Vidal Sassoon

In the years 1910 and 1911 I had 51 innings with 10 not outs and an average of 19. This I consider a creditable record for a poet. — Siegfried Sassoon

Across the land a faint blue veil of mist
Seems hung; the woods wear yet arrayment sober
Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist
The drooping cherry orchards of October
Like mournful pennons hang their shriveling leaves
Russet and orange: all things now decay;
Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves,
And sad the robins pipe at set of day. — Siegfried Sassoon

I don't sort of sit in a chair and pompously feel proud of myself about all the things we might have accomplished. — Vidal Sassoon

I kept thinking I would be spending my life up to my elbows in shampoo. — Vidal Sassoon

He belonged to the old school of country gentlemen, ruling his estate with semi-benevolent tyranny and turning his back on all symptoms of social innovation. Under his domination the Packlestone country had been looked after on feudal system lines. His method of dealing with epistolary complaints from discontented farmers was to ignore them; in verbal intercourse he bulled them and sent them about their business with a good round oath. Such people, he firmly believed, were put there by Providence to touch their hats and do as they were told by their betters ... And as such he continued beyond his eightieth year, until he fell into a fish-pond on his estate and was buried by the parson whose existence he had spurned by his arrogance. — Siegfried Sassoon

As stylists, we're groundshakers and daymakers. I was always in hair. — Vidal Sassoon

His face - what would it have become? While calling him back in memory I have been haunted by the idea of the unalterable features of those who have died in youth. Borne away from them by the years, we - with our time-troubled looks and diminished alertness - have submitted to many a gradual detriment of change. But the young poet of twenty-five years ago remains his world-discovering self. His futureless eyes encounter ours from the faintly smiling portrait, unconscious of the privilege and deprivation of never growing old, unconscious of the dramatic illusion of completeness that he is destined to create. — Siegfried Sassoon

It's hard to give advice. There are so many people, how do you give major advice to a group of people, it's very presumptuous. — Vidal Sassoon

Rambling among woods and meadows, I could 'take sweet counsel' with the country-side; sitting on a grassy bank and lifting my face to the sun, I could feel an intensity of thankfulness such as I'd never known before the War; listening to the little brook that bubbled out of a copse and across a rushy field, I could discard my personal relationship with the military machine and its ant-like armies. On — Siegfried Sassoon

A working woman could save a few shillings a week, and then every five weeks she'd come in and we'd cut her hair. She could shampoo it under the shower, swing it and dry it off or just let it dry by itself. It changed the lives of many young girls who'd never had the opportunity to be styled like that before. — Vidal Sassoon

Hair excited me. As the old ways - backcombing, rollers and rigidity - went out of the window, I started to feel the possibilities in front of my eyes. — Vidal Sassoon

If you have a sense of style and purpose and will you don't want to compromise. — Vidal Sassoon

And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad
Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
That drive them out to jabber among the trees. — Siegfried Sassoon

Vidal Sassoon was the most famous hairstylist in the history of the world. — John Paul DeJoria

The fact is that five years ago I was, as near as possible, a different person to what I am tonight. I, as I am now, didn't exist at all. Will the same thing happen in the next five years? I hope so. — Siegfried Sassoon

EVERYONE suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields;
on - on - and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done. — Siegfried Sassoon

I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. — Siegfried Sassoon

Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin they think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives. — Siegfried Sassoon

I am banished from the patient men who fight.
They smote my heart to pity, built my pride.
Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,
They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light.
Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight
They went arrayed in honour. But they died,
Not one by one: and mutinous I cried
To those who sent them out into the night.
The darkness tells how vainly I have striven
To free them from the pit where they must dwell
In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven
By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel.
Love drives me back to grope with them through hell;
And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven. — Siegfried Sassoon

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. — Siegfried Sassoon

You must always do what you feel is right. — Vidal Sassoon

If I ever thought of myself as a man of thirty-five it was a visualization of dreary decrepitude. — Siegfried Sassoon

Women were going back to work, they were assuming their own power. They didn't have time to sit under the dryer. — Vidal Sassoon

I've read a lot of war writing, even World War I writing, the British war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves's memoir "Goodbye to All That," and a civilian memoir "Testament of Youth" by Vera Brittain . — George Packer

To sculpt a head of hair with scissors is an art form. It's in pursuit of art. — Vidal Sassoon

My mother left me for seven years in an orphanage. — Vidal Sassoon

Capri on the Amalfi Coast in Italy is my ultimate holiday destination. — Vidal Sassoon

I was all about my thoughts, my work, my inspiration. I was always in hair. — Vidal Sassoon

But I've grown thoughtful now. And you have lost Your early-morning freshness of surprise At being so utterly mine: you've learned to fear The gloomy, stricken places in my soul, And the occasional ghosts that haunt my gaze. — Siegfried Sassoon

We learned to put discipline in the haircuts by using actual geometry, actual architectural shapes and bone structure. The cut had to be perfect and layered beautifully, so that when a woman shook it, it just fell back in. — Vidal Sassoon

I got into hairdressing and moved from Dorset to London, where I got an apprenticeship at Vidal Sassoon. This was around '83 or '84. I was working on South Molton Street, which was then the epicenter of all the shops. It was like a catwalk. So I did my apprenticeship there, but I wasn't successful. — Guido Palau

Alone he staggered on until he found
Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. — Siegfried Sassoon

The essence is, what can we do next? And will it be good? — Vidal Sassoon

My greatest regret is selling my company. — Vidal Sassoon

Does it matter?
losing your legs? ...
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after football
To gobble their muffins and eggs.
Does it matter?
losing your sight? ...
There's such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.
Do they matter?
those dreams from the pit? ...
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad;
For they'll know that you've fought for your country,
And no one will worry a bit. — Siegfried Sassoon

Before the Battle:
Music of whispering trees
Hushed by the broad-winged breeze
Where shaken water gleams;
And evening radiance falling
With reedy bird-notes calling.
O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams.
I have no need to pray
That fear may pass away;
I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight
That summons me from cool
Silence of marsh and pool,
And yellow lilies islanded in light.
O river of stars and shadows, lead me through the night. — Siegfried Sassoon

Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake,
Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take,
I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then
Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men
Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light.
Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right
Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare
Of flickering horror in the sectors where
We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled,
Or crawling on their bellies through the wire.
"What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?"
Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire:
Why did he do it? ... Starlight overhead
Blank stars. I'm wide-awake; and some chap's dead. — Siegfried Sassoon

Mute in that golden silence hung with green,
Come down from heaven and bring me in your eyes
Remembrance of all beauty that has been,
And stillness from the pools of Paradise.
— Siegfried Sassoon

If you just do something, then you're a five-year wonder and, goodbye, you're gone. But if people feel it's worthwhile, not only do they copy but they want to learn how to do it To me, that's what it's all about. If someone were to ask me, 'What's the number one thing, in essence, that you left behind?' It was the teaching of others so that they could take my work and take it further. — Vidal Sassoon

December stillness, teach me through your trees
That loom along the west, one with the land,
The veiled evangel of your mysteries.
While nightfall, sad and spacious, on the down
Deepens, and dusk embues me where I stand,
With grave diminishings of green and brown,
Speak, roofless Nature, your instinctive words;
And let me learn your secret from the sky,
Following a flock of steadfast-journeying birds
In lone remote migration beating by.
December stillness, crossed by twilight roads,
Teach me to travel far and bear my loads. — Siegfried Sassoon

We were carrying something in our heads which belonged to us alone, and to those we had left behind us in the battle. — Siegfried Sassoon

If you don't look good, we don't look good. — Vidal Sassoon

Soldiers are dreamers. — Siegfried Sassoon

His wet white face and miserable eyesBrought nurses to him more than groans and sighs:But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fellHis troubled voice: he did the business well.(First verse of Died of Wounds) — Siegfried Sassoon

My idea was to cut shape into the hair, to use it like fabric and take away everything that was superfluous. — Vidal Sassoon

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

Gordon Nelson is not only my friend, he's my mentor. He is a master craftsman with unique experience, and an approach to creativity that we can all learn from. For any hairdresser looking for enlightenment, look no further than a man who worked at the original Vidal Sassoon Salon, and who continues to strive for innovation in the industry. — Nick Arrojo

I did not dread the dark winter as people do when they have lost their youth and live alone in some great city. — Siegfried Sassoon

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."
"The War Poems — Siegfried Sassoon

October's bellowing anger breakes and cleavesThe bronzed battalions of the stricken woodIn whose lament I hear a voice that grievesFor battle's fruitless harvest, and the feudOf outrage men. Their lives are like the leavesScattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blownAlong the westering furnace flaring red.O martyred youth and manhood overthrown,The burden of your wrongs is on my head. — Siegfried Sassoon

I came home after a year and although my profession was only hairdressing, I knew I could change it. — Vidal Sassoon

The dead ... are more real than the living because they are complete. — Siegfried Sassoon

To me hair dressing means shape. It's very important that the foundations should be 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 night the night before - and a client said to me, 'Good God, Vidal, what happened to your face?' And I said, 'Oh, nothing, madam, I just fell over a hairpin.' — Vidal Sassoon

To him, as to me, the War was inevitable and justifiable. Courage remained a virtue. And that exploitation of courage, if I may be allowed to say a thing so obvious, was the essential tragedy of the War, which, as everyone now agrees, was a crime against humanity. — Siegfried Sassoon

When Dick was killed last week he looked like that, Flapping along the fire-step like a fish, After the blazing crump had knocked him flat ... . How many dead? As many as ever you wish. Don't count 'em; they're too many. Who'll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny? — Siegfried Sassoon

Realizing our society as it is, without theology dogmatically telling us how we should react to it, and being humane toward that society, that is all that we're sure of. — Vidal Sassoon

From my point of view, there is a tremendous amount to be said for secular humanism. — Vidal Sassoon

I think that as good architecture enhances a city, a good cut enhances the definition and expression of a face. — Vidal Sassoon

It's okay saying sorry, but when you are drunk you say what you really feel. — Vidal Sassoon

In the sixties, everyone you knew became famous. My flatmate was Terence Stamp. My barber was Vidal Sassoon. David Hockney did the menu in a restaurant I went to. I didn't know anyone unknown who didn't become famous. — Michael Caine

Books; what a jolly company they are,
Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves,
Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green
And every kind of colour. Which will you read?
Come on; O do read something; they're so wise.
I tell you all the wisdom of the world
Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet
You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out,
And listen to the silence. — Siegfried Sassoon

'The Pianist' is a movie I could watch over and over again. — Vidal Sassoon

I got a telegraph from my mother who said that my step-father had had a heart attack, come home and earn a living. So I went back to England and the only thing I knew to earn any cash was through hairdressing. — Vidal Sassoon

O German mother dreaming by the fire, While you are knitting socks to send your son His face is trodden deeper in the mud. — Siegfried Sassoon

A good trick as you get older is to get a thick pair of glasses that have a dark frame. Everything else can droop and slide but that pair of dark glasses stays sharp and crisp. Look at Cary Grant. Look at Vidal Sassoon. — Tom Ford

Man, it seemed, had been created to jab the life out of Germans. — Siegfried Sassoon

You either create something and you keep it a secret and you die with it, or you can benefit the craft. — Vidal Sassoon