Quotes from Erich Maria Remarque

With our young, awakened eyes, we saw that the classical conception of the fatherland held by our teachers resolved itself here into a renunciation of personality such as one would not ask of the meanest servants.

Our first experience of heavy artillery fire showed us our mistake, and the view of life that their teaching had given us fell to pieces under that bombardment.

Kad cilv?ks ir pieaudzis? [..] Kad vair?k dom? par sevi nek? par citiem.

Sela je za svoj sto i izvadila pribor za pisanje. - Ljubljeni, pisala je, ti sa nejasnim licem, nepoznati, koji nikad nisi došao, stalno o?ekivani, zar ne ose?aš kako vreme izmi?e? A onda je prestala da piše i odgurnu kasetu u kojoj su ležala mnoga neposlata pisma, pisma za koje nije znala adrese - pogleda u beli list pred sobom i pomisli: zašto pla?em? Time se ionako ništa ne može izmeniti...

We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and in cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.

Cilv?ks vienm?r un visur ir non?cis gal?. Laiks ir aizspriedums. Tas ir dz?ves nosl?pums. Tikai m?s to nezin?m. M?s vienm?r tiecamies kaut kur non?kt.

Die Stille ist die Ursache dafür, dass die Bilder des Früher nicht so sehr Wünsche erwecken als Trauer - eine ungeheure, fassungslose Schwermut. Sie waren - aber sie kehren nicht wieder. Sie sind vorbei, sie sind eine andere Welt, die für uns vorüber ist.

The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and in cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.

The fellows who write those lies ought to go out and hang themselves.

Even a soldier's behind likes to sit soft.

The noises from outside all merge into one another, become a dream which disappears from the waking memory...he sees the woods and stars behind him, and so he moves on, an ordinary soldier, with his big boots and his webbing and his pack, making his tiny way under the sky's great vault along the road that lies before him; a soldier who forgets things quickly and who isn't even depressed much any more, but who just goes onwards under the great night sky.

all top-grade emperors need at least one war, otherwise they don't get famous. Have a look in your school history books - Stanislaus Kat Katczinsky

Kat turns his eyes to heaven, lets off a mighty fart, and says meditatively: Every little bean must be heard as well as seen.

Suddenly my mother seizes hold of my hand and asks falteringly: 'Was it very bad out there, Paul?' Mother, what should I answer to that! You would not understand, you could never realize it. And you shall never realize it.

There is the great sky again, and the stars, and the first streak of dawn, and he is walking beneath that sky, a soldier with big boots and a full belly, a little soldier in the early morning.

Die Worte wehten im Zwielicht hin und her, sie waren ohne Bedeutung, und das, was von Bedeutung war, war ohne Worte.

I bet there are other people behind it all who are making a profit out of the war - Detering

For instance, if you train a dog to eat potatoes and then afterwards put a piece of meat in front of him, he'll snap at it, it's his nature. And if you give a man a little bit of authority he behaves just the same way, he snaps at it too.

Svaki ?ovek ima ono malo svoga razuma da razabere kako ne može živeti samo prema razumu.

Da li znate, bra?o, šta je najjezivije na svetu? - Prazna ?aša - odgovori Lenc. Ferdinand ga zbrisa jednim zamahom: - Gotfride, žalosno je kad je muškarac lakrdijaš. On se opet obrati nama. - Vreme je, drugovi, najjezivije. Vreme! Trenutak u kome živimo, a kojim ipak ne vladamo.

I think it's more a kind of fever, Nobody really wants it, but all of a sudden, there it is. We didn't want the war, they say the same thing on the other side – and in spite of that, half the world is at it hammer and tongs. - Albert Kropp

We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were 18 and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.

People who write the false things and cause a disrupt ought to be strung up. They're the real villains

The graveyard is a mass of wreckage. Coffins and corpses lie strewn about. They have been killed once again; but each of them that was flung up saved one of us.