Quote of the Day 12-27-13 (Alphonse Kerr)

“The age for military service has arrived, and every young man has to submit to the arbitrary orders of some rascal or ignoramus; he must believe that nobility and greatness consist in renouncing his own will and becoming the tool of another’s will, in slashing and in getting himself slashed, in suffering from hunger, thirst, rain, and cold; in being mutilated without knowing why and without any other reward than a glass of brandy on the day of battle and the promise of something impalpable and fictitious–immortality after death, and glory given or refused by the pen of some journalist in his warm room.

“A gun is fired. He falls wounded, his comrades finish him off by trampling over him. He is buried half alive and then he may enjoy immortality. He for whom he had given his happiness, his sufferings, and his very life, never knew him. And years later someone comes to collect his whitened bones, out of which they make paint and English blacking for cleaning his general’s boots.”

–Alphonse Kerr

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Quoted in The Heretic’s Handbook of Quotations.

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