Soldier Front Quotes & Sayings

The instant you say All Quiet On The Western Front people remember that great 20th century classic book on war, a book about a school boy turned into a soldier overnight. — Ann Widdecombe

We are born into this time and must bravely follow the path to the destined end. There is no other way. Our duty is to hold on to the lost position, without hope, without rescue, like that Roman soldier whose bones were found in front of a door in Pompeii, who, during the eruption of Vesuvius, died at his post because they forgot to relieve him. That is greatness. That is what it means to be a thoroughbred. The honorable end is the one thing that can not be taken from a man. — Oswald Spengler

We must differentiate between guilt and duty. The soldier on the front, like the common man, who does his duty everywhere, should not be held responsible for the actions of a few who also called themselves Germans. — Oskar Schindler

Statistics show that a soldier's chances of survival in the front lines of combat are greater than the chances of an unborn child avoiding abortion. What should be the safest place to live in America - a mother's womb - is now the most dangerous place. — Randy Alcorn

The front-line soldier wants it to be got over by the physical process of his destroying enough Germans to end it. He is truly at war. The rest of us, no matter how hard we work, are not. — Ernie Pyle

It is night at the front, a shadow, a shot. The Jew who has just fired
hears a moan ...
And then, mother, the hair stands up on his head, for only a few feet from him in the darkness the enemy voice is reciting in Hebrew the prayer of the dying. Ai, God, the soldier has cut down a Jewish brother! Ai, misery! He drops his rifle and runs into no man's land, insane with shame and grief. Insane, you understand? The enemy fires at him, his comrades shout at him to come back. But he refuses; he stays in no man's land and dies. Ai, misery, ai ... ! — Andre Schwarz-Bart

No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck. — Erich Maria Remarque

In researching this volume, I interviewed veterans who had been at the front during World War II. I read countless books, examined film footage, and listened to many detailed and intense stories firsthand, but the one comment that affected me the most came from a former soldier who lowered his gaze to the tabletop and said, 'I never watch war movies. — Hiromu Arakawa

This conflict is one thing I've been waiting for. I'm well and strong and young - young enough to go to the front. If I can't be a soldier, I'll help soldiers. — Clara Barton

And be very careful at the front, Paul."
Ah, Mother, Mother! Why do I not take you in my arms and die with you. What poor wretches we are! — Erich Maria Remarque

He needed to find his calm, to find his inner soldier and yank the fucker in front of the horny bastard who'd taken control of his mind. — Ellis Leigh

Consideration of any kind are a crime against the German people and the soldier at the front. — Wilhelm Keitel

And this I know: all these things that now, while we are still in the war, sink down in us like a stone, after the war shall waken again, and then shall begin the disentanglement of life and death. — Erich Maria Remarque

We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers - we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals. — Erich Maria Remarque

Among others, yes. There were some Egyptian gods worshipped there too." Lourds grinned. "One of the most interesting pieces is the Stoivadeion, the temple dedicated to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It's a giant phallus." The two soldiers in the front of the boat totally lost it and started laughing hysterically. Even Fitrat laughed, and he wiped his eyes. "Who would do such a thing?" "It was erected - if I may be so bold - " The soldiers howled with glee. " - by an ancient Greek grammarian named Carystius. Sadly, this phallus is practically all that remains of his works. Even that is broken." "Broken?" The young soldier in the front seat turned around again. He had changed to speaking English. "Yes. In half." "So now it's half-cocked? Is that how you say this in your slang?" The soldier laughed and pounded his thigh with a fist. "Yes." Lourds covered his face with his hat and wanted to throw himself overboard. — Charles Brokaw

Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity. — Michael Moore

Reminders

'The peace garden is opposite the War Memorial,'
Said the old soldier.

'We had to fight to make peace
Back in the good old days.'

'No, the War Memorial is opposite the peace garden,'
Said the old pacifist.

'You've had so many wars to end all wars,
Still millions are dying from the wars you left behind.'

'Look,' said the old soldier.
'You chickens stuck your peace garden
In front of our War Memorial to cause non-violent trouble.
This War Memorial is necessary,
It reminds us that people have died for our country.'

'Look,' said the old pacifist,
'In the beginning was peace
And the peace was with God
And the peace was God,
This peace garden is unnecessary but
It reminds us that people want to live for our country. — Benjamin Zephaniah

There is much argument here about what is respectable and what is not, and what a good gel should or should not do regarding hemlines. I have to report that the general opinion of a soldier looking forward to leave after many months at the Front is that a hemline should go up as far as possible, and that the more unrespectable the girl the better. The proviso being, of course, that one's own wife/sweetheart should not occupy this category. — Theresa Breslin

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. — G.K. Chesterton

At one point in the journey, we're approaching the Arc de Triomphe.

"That's awesome," states Paul.

"My guidebook says that it's the resting place of the 'unknown soldier' and the flame never goes out," I announce proudly.

The taxi driver says something to Elizabeth, who is sitting in the front.

"Franz here, suggests that if the budget deficit gets any worse, they intend to turn the gas off except on Public Holidays."

"Still practically every day then! — Chambers Mars

But we most of us lose our sense of proportion in the presence of a nun; and George, thus exposed at short range to this bride of Christ in her uncompromising medieval habit, finds himself becoming flustered, defensive. An unwilling conscript in Hell's legions, he faces the soldier of Heaven across the front-line of an exceedingly polite cold war. — Christopher Isherwood

We have yielded no more than a few hundred yards of it as a prize to the enemy. But on every yard there lies a dead man. — Erich Maria Remarque

When you are a soldier you are one of two things, either at the front or behind the lines. If you are behind the lines you need not worry. If you are at the front you are one of two things. You are either in a danger zone or in a zone which is not dangerous. If you are in a zone which is not dangerous you need not worry. If you are in a danger zone you are one of two things; either you are wounded or you are not. If you are not wounded you need not worry. If you are wounded you are one of two things, either
seriously wounded or slightly wounded. If you are
slightly wounded you need not worry. If you are
seriously wounded one of two things is certain -
either you get well or you die. If you get well you
needn't worry. If you die you cannot worry, so there is no need to worry about anything at all. — Vera Brittain

The room shall speak, it must catch me up and hold me, I want to feel that I belong here, I want to hearken and know when I go back to the front line that the war will sink down, be drowned utterly in the great home-coming tide, know that it will then be past for ever, and not gnaw us continually, that it will have none but an outward power over us ... Nothing stirs; listless and wretched, like a condemned man, I sit there and the past withdraws itself. And at the same time I fear to importune it too much, because I do not know what might happen then. I am a soldier, I must cling to that. — Erich Maria Remarque

Moreover, broad plans commensurate with our national purpose and resources would bring conviction of our power to every soldier in the front line, to the nations associated with us in the war, and to the enemy. — Kelly Miller

Take a soldier and put him right in front of a cannon in a battle and fire it at him, and he'll go on hoping, but read out a certain death sentence to that same soldier, and he'll go mad, or start to weep. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The more public thy place, Christian, and the more eminent thy service for God, the more thou must look that the devil will have some more dangerous design or other against thee; and therefore, if every private soldier needs armour against Satan's bullets of temptation, then the commanders and officers who stand in the front of battle much more. — William Gurnall

Life in the trenches has been well documented, though mostly from the point of view of the victors. Especially in the English-language literature on World War I, there is not a huge amount that captures the experiences of the ordinary German soldier. The present translation of my grandfather's memoirs of his time on the Western Front may offer some redress. — Gunther Simmermacher

Now I know what happens at a gig, I will be ready for it, next time
I will come in just a T-shirt and shorts and books, and fight my way to the front, like a quietly determined soldier, and then let the band take my head off. I want to walk into rooms like that every night, with a sense of something happening. — Caitlin Moran

I accept responsibility for U-boat warfare from 1933 onward, and of the entire navy from 1943 on, but to make me responsible for what happened to Jews in Germany, or Russian soldiers on the east front it is so ridiculous all I can do is laugh. — Karl Donitz

We are living in an artificial world - a world of fantasies and illusions. We've learned beautiful phrases but haven't learned yet how to carry out that little bit that we know. Our brains are stuffed with quotations, while at the same time nine out of ten of these dogmas are incomprehensible, murky, or lies. Which are worthwhile and which are not? Yes, I must stop being false before others and myself. How simple it all seems! But how do I do this? Let just a little time pass, and then we may understand - only the simplest, honorable acts determine the value of a man. Only I myself can and must help myself to become an adult. — Boris Gorbachevsky

Got any good ideas, soldier?" "Lots of them. Somebody gunned Geiger. Somebody got gunned by Geiger, who ran away. Or it was two other fellows. Or Geiger was running a cult and made blood sacrifices in front of that totem pole. Or he had chicken for dinner and liked to kill his chickens in the front parlor. — Raymond Chandler

He killed, his sword shearing, shield and horse a ram, pushing in, and further in, opening a space by force alone for the momentum of the men behind him. Beside him a man fell to a spear in the throat. To his left, an equine scream as Rochert's horse went down.
In front of him, methodically, men fell, and fell, and fell.
He split his attention. He swept a sword cut aside with his shield, killed a helmed soldier, and all the while flung out his mind, waiting for the moment when Touar's lines split open. The most difficult part of commanding from the front was this
staying alive in the moment, while tracking in his mind, critically, the whole fight. Yet it was exhilarating, like fighting with two bodies, at two scales. — C.S. Pacat

What's it like to be that goofy little soldier, scared stiff, with his bayonet aimed at Christ? What's it like to have been a woman in a defense-plant job during World War II? What's it like to be a kid at the front lines? It's all funny and tragic at the same time — Studs Terkel

Seventeen times against the wall or in the barn: You move or scream or say anything I will kill them all. In front of you. First I will torture them and then I will kill them. Her eyes as dead as she can make them. Her arms as limp as she can make them. Her heart as hidden as she can make it. A soldier's cock entering the thin white flesh of a girl, into the small red cave of her, the fist of her heart pounding out be-dead, be-dead, be-dead.
Counting. — Lidia Yuknavitch