Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Richard Aldington, born Edward Godfree Aldington

English Writer and Poet known for WWI novel, Death of a Hero and Lawrence of Arabia

"Patriotism is a lively sense of responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill."

"All nations teach their children to be patriotic, and abuse the other nations for fostering nationalism."

"How on earth did it come about that all the things denounced in the Gospels are violently defended by the Christian sects? But we must grow out of religion. It is either bugaboo, formalism, or hysteria. Besides, what proof is there that the churches know more about God than the Cockney sentry on duty outside the camp? We have only their say-so."

"A man in love is the best man because he needs only one woman."

"We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret."

"We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift, salute for the last time those lines of pitiable crosses, those solitary mounds, those unknown graves, and turn to live our lives out as we may."

"Which of us were fortunate--who can tell? For you there is silence and cold twilight drooping in awful desolation over those motionless lands. For us sunlight and the sound of women's voices, song and hope and laughter, despair, gaiety, love--life."

"Wearily the sentry moves muttering the one word: "Peace.""

"Wearily the sentry moves muttering the one word: "Peace." "

"The casualty lists went on appearing for a long time after the Armistice - last spasms of Europe's severed arteries."

"Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you. Exploration is experiencing what you have not experienced before. How can there be any adventure, any exploration, if you let somebody else - above all, a travel bureau - arrange everything before-hand? "

"The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood Put me out of love with God. I can't believe in God's goodness; I can believe In many avenging gods. Most of all I believe In gods of bitter dullness, Cruel local gods Who scared my childhood. I've seen people put A chrysalis in a match-box, "To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come." But when it broke its shell It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison And tried to climb to the light For space to dry its wings. That's how I was. Somebody found my chrysalis And shut it in a match-box. My shrivelled wings were beaten, Shed their colours in dusty scales Before the box was opened For the moth to fly. I hate that town; I hate the town I lived in when I was little; I hate to think of it. There wre always clouds, smoke, rain In that dingly little valley. It rained; it always rained. I think I never saw the sun until I was nine -- And then it was too late; Everything's too late after the first seven years. The long street we lived in Was duller than a drain And nearly as dingy. There were the big College And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall. There were the sordid provincial shops -- The grocer's, and the shops for women, The shop where I bought transfers, And the piano and gramaphone shop Where I used to stand Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone. How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was! On wet days -- it was always wet -- I used to kneel on a chair And look at it from the window. The dirty yellow trams Dragged noisily along With a clatter of wheels and bells And a humming of wires overhead. They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines And then the water ran back Full of brownish foam bubbles. There was nothing else to see -- It was all so dull -- Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas Running along the grey shiny pavements; Sometimes there was a waggon Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound With their hoofs Through the silent rain. And there was a grey museum Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals And a few relics of the Romans -- dead also. There was a sea-front, A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it, Three piers, a row of houses, And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour. I was like a moth -- Like one of those grey Emperor moths Which flutter through the vines at Capri. And that damned little town was my match-box, Against whose sides I beat and beat Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy As that damned little town. At school it was just as dull as that dull High Street. The front was dull; The High Street and the other street were dull -- And there was a public park, I remember, And that was damned dull, too, With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick, And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on, And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in, And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones, And the swings, which were for "Board-School children," And its gravel paths. And on Sundays they rang the bells, From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches. They had a Salvation Army. I was taken to a High Church; The parson's name was Mowbray, "Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it --" That's what I heard people say. I took a little black book To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church, And I had to sit on a hard bench, Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed, And then there was nothing to do Except to play trains with the hymn-books. There was nothing to see, Nothing to do, Nothing to play with, Except that in an empty room upstairs There was a large tin box Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, Of the Declaration of Independence And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada. There were also several packets of stamps, Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, Indians and Men-of-war From the United States, And the green and red portraits Of King Francobello Of Italy. I don't believe in God. I do believe in avenging gods Who plague us for sins we never sinned But who avenge us. That's why I'll never have a child, Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box For the moth to spoil and crush its brght colours, Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall. "

"Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill."

"He wore the black suit which he used for funerals, a form of social entertainment which greatly appealed to Mr. Judd since it combined dignity of emotion with solemn lessons on the dangers of existence in an under-policed country."

"We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret. We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift; salute for the last time those lines of pitiable crosses, those solitary mounds, those unknown graves, and turn to live our lives out as we may. Which of us were fortunate--who can tell? For you there is silence and cold twilight drooping in awful desolation over those motionless lands. For us sunlight and the sound of women's voices, song and hope and laughter, despair, gaiety, love--life. Lost terrible silent comrades, we, who might have died, salute you."

"Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill."

"Time is a mirage; it reduces the minutes of happiness."