Richard Aldington > Quotes

“Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you. Exploration is experiencing what you have not experienced before. How can there be any adventure, any exploration, if you let somebody else - above all, a travel bureau - arrange everything before-hand?”
― Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero

“We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret.
We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift, salute for the last time those lines of pitiable crosses, those solitary mounds, those unknown graves, and turn to live our lives out as we may.
Which of us were fortunate--who can tell? For you there is silence and cold twilight drooping in awful desolation over those motionless lands. For us sunlight and the sound of women's voices, song and hope and laughter, despair, gaiety, love--life.
Lost terrible silent comrades, we, who might have died, salute you.”
― Richard Aldington, Roads to Glory

“All nations teach their children to be "patriotic", and abuse the other nations for fostering nationalism." ("Sacrifice Post")”
― Richard Aldington

“The casualty lists went on appearing for a long time after the Armistice - last spasms of Europe's severed arteries.”
― Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero

“Just now I was thinking that I'd died and had to come to life again, had to build up a life myself. Only the new edifice has to be built with the ruins of the old. Or rather, I feel like a tree that has been blasted level with the ground, with only the roots still living. Some even of the roots are dead, some I have to kill, the rest have to grow again somehow.”
― Richard Aldington, All Men Are Enemies

“Let's get rid of abstractions-they don't exist. I agree about duties, but I don't believe it is a duty to try to arrange other people's lives for them in accordance with abstract principles, however well-meant and high-sounding. I don't believe in trying to reform the world. The thing for me is to live my own life as fully as possible. If I can “ improve " myself then I've done something towards reforming humanity. My relation with the beauty of the world, this glorious O, is my own affair, my religion if you like. And as to my duty to others, it's to men and women, not to Man and Woman”
― Richard Aldington, All Men Are Enemies

“A little common sense, goodwill, and a tiny dose of unselfishness, could make this goodly earth an earthly paradise. – Richard Aldington”
― Richard Aldington

“How on earth did it come about that all the things denounced in the Gospels are violently defended by the Christian sects? But we must grow out of religion. It is either bugaboo, formalism, or hysteria. Besides, what proof is there that "the churches" know more about "God" than the Cockney sentry on duty outside the camp? We have only their say-so." ("Sacrifice Post", Lt. Davison)”
― Richard Aldington

“Родственники ужасный народ. Они не вносят в вашу жизнь ничего хорошего и считают, что это дает им право вечно вмешиваться в ваши дела. И еще нахально требуют, чтобы вы их любили,- кровь, видите ли, не вода. Может, она и не вода, но барахтаться в крови для меня вовсе не удовольствие.”
― Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero

“He wore the black suit which he used for funerals, a form of social entertainment which greatly appealed to Mr. Judd since it combined dignity of emotion with solemn lessons on the dangers of existence in an under-policed country.”
― Richard Aldington, COLONEL'S DAUGHTER

“In the twentieth century the women who wanted to be on their own were some of the best, the honest ones, those who instinctively rejected the trash. But here came a tragical dilemma. If they accepted Business and served it, they served the very thing from which they fled, and at best became imitation men. If they rejected Business and lived on allowances or incomes, they were in the anomalous position of hunting with the industrial hounds and running with the agricultural hare. An instinctive sense of this made many of them turn "artist." And so Europe was cluttered up with incompetent women "artists" -- not that a woman is incapable of being an artist, but because the assumed role provided an escape. Either situation was impossible, and the solution is not yet found.”
― Richard Aldington, Women Must Work

“Quite rapidly Etta became acquainted with the realities of poverty in one of its loneliest forms -- that of the poor middle-class girl looking for a job. Only youth can engage in this struggle and survive as a vital human entity. For the other ones it is death, death of the spirit, because the pittance, the bit of bread and drink, the wisp of clothing, the flicker of fire must be begged of Business, not even as charity, but as a gracious boon in exchange for the best waking hours. It is always your money _and_ your life. Not that Business is intelligently ruthless, don't think it. Business is like a huge cretin, scuffing its great feet over the flower-beds of life while it thinks itself the most wonderful puffing billy, self-invented into the bargain.”
― Richard Aldington, Women Must Work

“Разум куда более надежная опора для счастья, чем "ax-любовь" и "бог" - эти благопристойные названия глупости и невежества.”
― Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero

“For Antony it was a moment of pure loss. If 'England' had meant anything it had meant the ideal of a relation between natural leaders and followers, duties increasing with privileges. Now they doubted themselves, they abdicated-they were still honest enough for that-because they knew they were inadequate to the situation. The younger, more insolent ones might go on trying, but they'd fail. They could no longer control the huge masses, those terrifying, almost mechanical masses who were one huge smoulder of resentment. The ideal of the gentleman was as dead as the reality.”
― Richard Aldington, All Men Are Enemies

“Ей с детства под сурдинку внушали, что долг каждой девушки — воспользоваться страстью мужчины как средством обогащения. Проституция, освященная законом.”
― Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero

“But if I'm useless only because I haven't been properly educated, is that my fault?”
― Richard Aldington, Women Must Work

“Подлинно выдающиеся умы не кичатся своим превосходством.”
― Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero

“The only news he wanted to hear was that
people had become a little sensible and decent and peace-
ful; he disliked this Cup-Tie attitude, in which people
took sides for the sake of excitement, and rooted for
their team to win without any sense of responsibility.
This passion for vicarious belligerence! Obviously
neither of them really believed that anything unpleasant
would happen to them, and the bogey of being stoned by
strikers was only evoked for the sake of a little uncostly
excitement.”
― Richard Aldington, All Men Are Enemies

“Я думал
О несчетных могилах вкруг разрушенной Трои,
И о всех молодых и красивых, обратившихся в прах,
И о долгих терзаньях, и о том, как все это было напрасно.”
― Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero

“Жінку часом обурюють занадто безглузді компілменти, але для чоловіків занадто грубих лестощів не буває. Не буває і квит.”
― Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero

“И, во всяком случае, институт брака примитивен и неминуемо рухнет под объединенным натиском противозачаточных средств и материальной независимости женщин.”
― Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero

“There shall be no more gods; there shall be no more quiet and holy places of the earth; and the sea shall be filled with our dirty works. Your women shall breed like sows, and you shall work like robots. You shall value nothing for its own sake, but only for its market value. As for living, the machines will do that for you. In the morning you shall say, Would God it evening; and in the evening, Would God it were morning.”
― Richard Aldington, All Men Are Enemies

“Религиозные убеждения - прекрасный предлог, чтоб делать людям гадости.”
― Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero