“These are not soldiers, these are men. They are notadventurers or warriors, designed for human butchery - as butchers or cattle. They are the ploughmen or workers that one recognizes even in their uniforms. They are uprooted civilians. They are ready, waiting for the signal for death or murder, but when you examine their faces between the vertical ranks of bayonets, they are nothing but men.”
― Henri Barbusse, quote from Under Fire
“Déjà, le mois de septembre, lendemain d'août et veille d'octobre et qui est par sa situation le plus émouvant des mois parsème les beaux jours de quelques fins avertissements. Déjà, on comprend ces feuilles mortes qui courent sur les pierres plates comme une bande de moineaux.”
― Henri Barbusse, quote from Under Fire
“An aeroplane booms overhead. We follow its evolutions with our faces skyward, our necks twisted, our eyes watering at the piercing brightness of the sky. Lamuse declares to me, when we have brought our gaze back to earth, “Those machines ’ll never become practical, never.”
“How can you say that? Look at the progress they’ve made already, and the speed of it.”
“Yes, but they’ll stop there. They’ll never do any better, never.”
― Henri Barbusse, quote from Under Fire
“Paradis: «Sì, questa è la guerra», ripete con voce remota, distante. «Nient’altro che questo».
Capisco benissimo il senso delle sue parole. «Più delle cariche che sembrano parate, più delle battaglie visibili dispiegate come stendardi, più ancora dei corpo a corpo dove ci si dibatte e si grida, questa guerra è spaventosa e sovrumana fatica, è acqua fino al ventre, è fango, escrementi e infame sporcizia. È facce ammuffite e carni a brandelli, è cadaveri che non sembrano più nemmeno cadaveri, mentre galleggiano sulla terra famelica. È tutto questo, è questa miserabile monotonia interrotta da momenti drammatici; è questa, e non la baionetta scintillante come fosse d’argento, né il chicchirichì della tromba al sorgere del sole!»”
― Henri Barbusse, quote from Under Fire
“Andiamo avanti, non sappiamo dove. Non sappiamo niente, tranne che il cielo e la terra stanno per confondersi nel medesimo abisso.”
― Henri Barbusse, quote from Under Fire
“Quando si viene a sapere, o la si vede di persona, della morte di uno di quelli che facevano la guerra accanto a te e che vivevano esattamente alla tua stessa maniera, prima ancora di capire provi un colpo al cuore. È come se d’un tratto venissi a sapere che tu stesso sei stato annientato. Il dolore arriva solo dopo un po’.”
― Henri Barbusse, quote from Under Fire
“«Se anche ce ne fossero, […] sarebbe da veri criminali esaltare gli aspetti belli della guerra!»”
― Henri Barbusse, quote from Under Fire
“In a state of war, one is always waiting. We have become waiting-machines. For the moment it is food we are waiting for. Then it will be the post. But each in its turn. When we have done with dinner we will think about the letters. After that, we shall set ourselves to wait for something else.”
― Henri Barbusse, quote from Under Fire
Henri Barbusse
Born place: in Asnières-sur-Seine, France
Born date May 17, 1873
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“For as we would wish that a painter who is to draw a beautiful face, in which there is yet some imperfection, should neither wholly leave out, nor yet too pointedly express what is defective, because this would deform it, and that spoil the resemblance; so since it is hard, or indeed perhaps impossible, to show the life of a man wholly free from blemish, in all that is excellent we must follow truth exactly, and give it fully; any lapses or faults that occur, through human passions or political necessities, we may regard rather as the shortcomings of some particular virtue, than as the natural effects of vice; and may be content without introducing them, curiously and officiously, into our narrative, if it be but out of tenderness to the weakness of nature, which has never succeeded in producing any human character so perfect in virtue as to be pure from all admixture and open to no criticism.”
― Plutarch, quote from Parallel Lives
“I was meant to land wherever he settled, like the ocean washing seashells onto the shore. Jack was the shell, in constant motion and movement, being tossed around from place to place by the ebb and flow of something more powerful than he. And I was the sand, gripping and holding on to him, comforting his tumble with each push and pull of the tide, yet always constant.”
― J. Sterling, quote from The Sweetest Game
“He who helped thee when thou wert in trouble ought not afterwards to be despised by thee.”
― Jacob Grimm, quote from The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
“La mayoría de los hombres con los que he estado… Es como si quisieran algo de mí que no les daba. No sé lo que era, pero simplemente no lo tenía para darlo. Entonces o me iba demasiado pronto o me quedaba demasiado.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Last Coyote
“When youth begins to pass, fun isn't fun any longer.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Endless Night
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Beauty from PainBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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