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Numbers of the old people cannot read. Those who can seldom do

Wilfred Owen

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Wilfred Owen
Age: 25 †
Born: 1893
Born: March 18
Died: 1918
Died: November 4
Poet
Writer
Oswestry
Shropshire
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen
Owen
Seldom
Numbers
Read
Cannot
People

More quotes by Wilfred Owen

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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.
Wilfred Owen
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I am only conscious of any satisfaction in Scientific Reading or thinking when it rounds off into a poetical generality and vagueness.
Wilfred Owen
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I thought of all that worked dark pits Of war, and died Digging the rock where Death reputes Peace lies indeed.
Wilfred Owen
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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.
Wilfred Owen
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And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
Wilfred Owen
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Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland.
Wilfred Owen
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I was a boy when I first realized that the fullest life liveable was a Poet's
Wilfred Owen
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Children are not meant to be studied, but enjoyed. Only by studying to be pleased do we understand them.
Wilfred Owen
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Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds, But here the thing's best left at home with friends.
Wilfred Owen
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Whatever mourns when many leave these shores: Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.
Wilfred Owen
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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.
Wilfred Owen
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This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.
Wilfred Owen
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Was it for this the clay grew tall?
Wilfred Owen
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Dead men may envy living mites in cheese, Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys, And subdivide, and never come to death.
Wilfred Owen
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The marvel is that we did not all die of cold. As a matter of fact, only one of my party actually froze to death before he could be got back, but I am not able to tell how many have ended up in hospital. We were marooned in a frozen desert. There was not a sign of life on the horizon and a thousand signs of death.
Wilfred Owen
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All theological lore is becoming distasteful to me.
Wilfred Owen
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Was it for this the clay grew tall? O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?
Wilfred Owen
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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.
Wilfred Owen
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Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, Even with truths that lie too deep for taint. I would have poured my spirit without stint But not through wounds not on the cess of war.
Wilfred Owen
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Those who, like the beasts, have no such Hope, pass their old age shrouded with an inward gloom.
Wilfred Owen