It would be a crime to exhibit the fine side of war, even if there were one! murmured one of the somber soldiers. The first man continued. "They'll s… - Henri Barbusse

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It would be a crime to exhibit the fine side of war, even if there were one! murmured one of the somber soldiers. The first man continued. "They'll say those things to us by way of paying us with glory, and to pay themselves, too, for what they haven't done. But military glory — it isn't even true for us common soldiers. It's for some, but outside those elect the soldier's glory is a lie, like every other fine-looking thing in war. In reality, the soldier's sacrifice is obscurely concealed. The multitudes that make up the waves of attack have no reward. They run to hurl themselves into a frightful inglorious nothing. You cannot even heap up their names, their poor little names of nobodies."

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About Henri Barbusse

Henri Barbusse (17 May 1873 – 30 August 1935) was a French novelist, journalist and member of the French Communist Party.

Biography information from Wikiquote

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Additional quotes by Henri Barbusse

Men must not awake, the shining shadow goes on, in dull and hollow tones. "Don't worry!" says the ironical voice, and at that moment it terrifies me.
Several bodies arise on their fists into the darkness — I see them by their heavy groans — and look around them.
The shadow talks to himself and repeats his insane words: — "Men must not awake."
The voice opposite me, capsizing in laughter and swollen with a rattle, says again: — "Don't worry!"

When you look straight on, you end by seeing the immense event — death. There is only one thing which really gives the meaning of our whole life, and that is our death. In that terrible light may they judge their hearts who will one day die. Well I know that Marie's death would be the same thing in my heart as my own, and it seems to me also that only within her of all the world does my own likeness wholly live. We are not afraid of the too great sincerity which goes the length of these things; and we talk about them, beside the bed which awaits the inevitable hour when we shall not awake in it again. We say: — "There'll be a day when I shall begin something that I shan't finish — a walk, or a letter, or a sentence, or a dream.".

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I am looking for the happiness which lives. And truly, when I have a sense of some new assent wavering and making ready, or when I am on the way to a first rendezvous, I feel myself gloriously uplifted, and equal to everything! This fills my life. Desire wears the brain as much as thought wears it. All my being is agog for chances to shine and to be shared. When they say in my presence of some young woman that, "she is not happy," a thrill of joy tears through me.

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