“The horrible thankfulness when one sees that the next man is dead: 'We won't have to carry him in under fire, thank God; dragging will do.' One is hardened by now: purged of all false pity: perhaps more selfish than before.”

Honest account of the brutalising effects of combat · Letter from the front

• Character
• Death
• War

“Mutual helplessness and lassitude, as when two boxers who have battered each other crouch dancing two paces from each other, waiting for the other to hit. This is not Hell as I hoped, but Limbo Lake with green growths on the water, full of minnows.”

Capturing the strange stalemate of trench warfare · Letter from the front

• Observation
• Reality
• War

“It seems to me that Germany's only fault is a lack of real insight and sympathy with those who differ from her. We are not fighting a bully, but a bigot. Each side has a virtue for which it is fighting, and each that virtue's supplementary vice. But I think that tolerance is the larger virtue of the two.”

Seeking understanding of the enemy even while fighting · Letter (1914)

• Tolerance
• Understanding
• War

“The war is a great thing, but it is not the greatest thing.”

Placing war in perspective without denying its immense power and cost · Letter, 1915

• Truth
• War