De Wiart Quotes

Governments may think and say as they like, but force cannot be eliminated, and it is the only real and unanswerable power. We are all told that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I know which of these weapons I would choose.

To me the right time for negotiations is after a victory when, backed by force, words seem to attain a meaning not so well understood before.

I went to Poland for three weeks, and I stayed twenty years, but to this day I could not tell you which season was the most fascinating.

War is a great leveller: it shows the man as he really is, not as he would like to be, nor as he would like you to think he is. It shows him stripped, with his greatness mixed with his pathetic fears and weaknesses, and though there were disappointments they were more than cancelled out by pleasant surprises of the little men who, suddenly, became larger than life. I have a creed, borne out by war, which is – never to give a man a second chance. It may sound hard, but I have found that the man who lets you down once, will, infallibly, do so again.

But if it wasn’t for the politicians we wouldn’t have wars, and I, for one, should have been done out of what is for me a very agreeable life.

People imagine the loss of a hand to be far more serious than the loss of an eye, but having tried both I can say sincerely that it is not my experience.

He sat with me for the next few hours with shells dropping all around us, Holmes soliloquizing over the charms of shells versus machine-gun bullets.

Eventually I became captain of the cricket and football elevens, won the racquets, tennis and billiards tournaments, and felt that the world was mine.