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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
Read
Cannot
People
Seldom
Numbers

More quotes by Wilfred Owen

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The Young Soldier It is not death Without hereafter To one in dearth Of life and its laughter, Nor the sweet murder Dealt slow and even Unto the martyr Smiling at heaven: It is the smile Faint as a (waning) myth, Faint, and exceeding small On a boy's murdered mouth.
Wilfred Owen
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Do you know what would hold me together on a battlefield? The sense that I was perpetuating the language in which Keats and the rest of them wrote!
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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Was it for this the clay grew tall?
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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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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My soul's a little grief, grappling your chest, To climb your throat on sobs easily chased On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.
Wilfred Owen
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And some cease feeling Even themselves or for themselves. Dullness best solves The tease and doubt of shelling
Wilfred Owen
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The English say, Yours Truly, and mean it. The Italians say, I kiss your feet, and mean, I kick your head.
Wilfred Owen
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Walking abroad, one is the admiration of all little boys, and meets an approving glance from every eye of elderly.
Wilfred Owen
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What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Wilfred Owen
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It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
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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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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Those who, like the beasts, have no such Hope, pass their old age shrouded with an inward gloom.
Wilfred Owen
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Heart, you were never hot Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot
Wilfred Owen
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Flying is the only active profession I could ever continue with enthusiasm after the War.
Wilfred Owen
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Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.
Wilfred Owen
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Escape? There is one unwatched way: your eyes. O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.
Wilfred Owen
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All theological lore is becoming distasteful to me.
Wilfred Owen