"What an incalculable debt do we owe to that little speck of land, Greece.—The principles of taste, the finest models of composition, the doctrines and the glorious examples to which we owe political freedom, the arts, the sciences, architecture, sculpture, every thing that is great and splendid in literature and politics, must be considered as ultimately derived from that little peninsula."

"I have been deep in Plato, Aristotle, and Theocritus ever since I left home, and admiring more and more every day the powers of that mighty language which is incomparably the best vehicle both for reasoning and for imagery that mankind have ever discovered, and which is richer both in abstract philosophical terms and poetical expressions than the English, French, and Latin tongues put together."

"I'm armed with more than complete steel,— The justice of my quarrel."

"Comparisons are odious."

"All they that love not tobacco and boys are fools."

"Above our life we love a steadfast friend."

"Love always makes those eloquent that have it."

"All women are ambitious naturally."

"Like untuned golden strings all women are, Which long time lie untouch'd, will harshly jar. Vessels of brass, oft handled, brightly shine."

"Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"

"It lies not in our power to love or hate, For will in us is overruled by fate."

"A pleasant-smiling cheek, a speaking eye, A brow for love to banquet royally."

"He that loves pleasure, must for pleasure fall."

"Pray for me! and what noise soever ye hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me."

"Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!"

"When all the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell that are not heaven."

"Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd In one self place; but where we are is hell, And where hell is, there must we ever be."

"Che serà, serà: What will be, shall be."

"And let these tears, distilling from mine eyes, Be proof of my grief and innocency."

"My swelling heart for very anger breaks."

"What should a priest do with so fair a house? A prison may best beseem his holiness."

"My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, Shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay."

"So, march away; and let due praise be given Neither to fate nor fortune, but to Heaven."

"Love me little, love me long."

"Thou hast committed— Fornication: but that was in another country; And besides, the wench is dead."

"Now will I show myself to have more of the serpent than the dove; that is, more knave than fool."

"Religion Hides many mischiefs from suspicion."

"Things past recovery Are hardly cured with exclamations."

"Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness."

"And thus methinks should men of judgment frame Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade, And, as their wealth increaseth, so inclose Infinite riches in a little room."

"I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance."

"Let Earth and Heaven his timeless death deplore, For both their worths shall equal him no more."

"Accurst be he that first invented war."

"Our swords shall play the orators for us."

"Time passeth swift away; Our life is frail, and we may die to-day."

"What strange arts necessity finds out."

"Pluck up your hearts, since fate still rests our friend."

"You sons of care, companions of my course!"

"Come live with me and be my Love, And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dales and fields, Or woods or steepy mountain yields.And we will sit upon the rocks, And see the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies."

"[A]s he relates the story there emerges a most delightful picture of English country life, by no means of its sporting side only. It is written in the pleasantest of good prose, simple, cool, and telling. It is marked by very vivid perception and by quiet and good-humoured irony."

"If A Fox-Hunting Man presents the Edwardian Age as an idyll of hunting and cricket, The Old Century is a complementary idyll of a serenely cultivated existence carried on, like the former, in the atmosphere of perpetual summer."

"Cecil Day-Lewis, A Time to Dance, 1936. Also quoted in C. Day-Lewis: The Golden Bridle - Selected Prose. Oxford University Press, 2017."

"During the War, Siegfried Sassoon published a volume of poems called Counter-Attack: these poems expressed in satire his violent revulsion from all that the war meant. They were a personal expression, as all good poetry is, but they had a considerable influence amongst those numerous intellectuals who had been swept into the War on a tide of Rupert Brooke feeling: I know of several, indeed, whose disillusionment was crystallised by these poems and who became conscious revolutionaries from the moment of reading them."

"It may be that it will be by his war poems that his name will last. He has gone far beyond them. His poems are diverse both in styles and subjects. As one critic has said: "There is no telling where a reader may fetch up when he goes out with this poet." But a poet is more than a man with metrical skill and an ability to make verbal music. (Sassoon is not high in this department.) He is a man apart from others. He has a way of looking at things that is not the ordinary man's. Sassoon has had his vigils and his visions. He has written Allow me now much musing-space To shape my secrecies alone. Happily his Collected Poems allow us to share some of them."

"Although his satirical poems hit some legitimate targets in shirkers, profiteers, hysterical women and home-front militarists, they are too sweeping, savage and self-centred to carry conviction. Indeed some now seem unnecessarily brutal, telling us more about the poet's troubled mind than about the war on the home or military fronts. Most seriously, at that time Sassoon shows no understanding of the meaning of the conflict in strategic or political terms. Although his protest had been well-intentioned and required great moral courage, it took another world war for him to admit that in 1917 there was no possibility for Britain or her allies to gain acceptable peace terms."

"As Sassoon's wartime diaries reveal, he was an extremely complex character, troubled by his homosexuality and anxious to prove his manliness in combat and so to earn the respect, perhaps even love, of his men. Also, as a poet first and foremost, he was never at ease with the majority of his fellow officers whom he found boorish, dull and snobbish, hence his delight in meeting other poets and literary men such as Graves, Owen and de Sola Pinto. Both on his own account, and for the reputation of poets, he wanted to prove himself a hero and did so in several gallant actions. But in seeking to protest against what he thought of as the excessive suffering of his men in an unduly prolonged war he allowed himself to be influenced by pacifists who had little respect for men in uniform and were disappointed that he did not provide publicity for their cause by going to prison."

"Freyberg inveighed against the Georgian Poets and reproached me for holding a brief for Siegfried Sassoon. I maintained that, having fully demonstrated his personal physical courage, he had earned the right to exhibit moral courage as a pacifist without laying himself open to the charge of cloaking physical cowardice under the claim of moral courage. Freyberg is very uncompromising in his condemnation and, with some justice, says it is offensive to come back and say, "I can't lead men to their death any more"—it implies a monopoly of virtue, as if other officers liked doing it because they acquiesced in their duty. He thought the poem called "The Hero" caddish, as it might destroy every mother's faith in the report of her son's death. Certainly Siegfried Sassoon breaks the conspiracy of silence, but sometimes I strongly feel that those at home should be made to realise the full horror, even to the incidental ugliness, as much as possible."

"Just after we came up from dinner, two young men came—one very shy, the other to all appearances very much at his ease. The former was Siegfried Sassoon. He was in khaki: at first I only noticed his sticking-out ears and obvious embarrassment, but a closer scrutiny revealed great charm and a certain sweetness and grave strength in his countenance. I felt much drawn towards him, but had no conversation with him. Nichols, on the other hand, was twice introduced to me by the zealous hostess and we spent the remainder of the evening side by side. He was a thin alert face and is quick and agreeable to talk to—he expressed great admiration for Siegfried, both as poet and soldier. They have both had shell-shock. For Siegfried, he claimed astonishing valour. They each read some of their own poems... Siegfried in a terse, laconic style... Siegfried's have a brilliant, grim irony."

"Deep in my morning time he made his mark And still he comes uncalled to be my guide In devastated regions When the brain has lost its bearings in the dark And broken in it’s body’s pride In the long campaign to which it had sworn allegiance."

"O fathering friend and scientist of good, Who in solitude, one bygone summer’s day, And in the throes of bodily anguish, passed away From dream and conflict and research-lit lands Of ethnological learning, — even as you stood Selfless and ardent, resolute and gay, So in this hour, in strange survival stands Your ghost, whom I am powerless to repay."