A Farewell to Arms (Primary source)
A Farewell to Arms, published in 1929, is Ernest Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical novel set during World War I. It tells the poignant story of an American ambulance driver, Lieutenant Frederic Henry, serving in the Italian army, and his doomed love affair with a British nurse, Catherine Barkley. The novel explores themes of love and loss, the brutality and futility of war, and the struggle to find meaning in a chaotic, indifferent world.
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“Napoleon would have whipped the Austrians on the plains. He never would have fought them in the mountains. He would have let them come down and whipped them around Verona. Still nobody was whipping any one on the Western front. Perhaps wars weren’t won any more. Maybe they went on forever. Maybe it was another Hundred Years’ War.”
Ernest Hemingway
“The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Never to go on trips with anyone you do not love.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“How did you go bankrupt? Two ways, gradually and then suddenly.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary sourceMore quotes by Ernest Hemingway →
“You never kill any one that you want to kill in a war.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“The main military purpose and scheme of the Dictators is to produce quick results, to avoid a prolonged war. A prolonged war never suits dictators.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“Love your neighbor; yet don’t pull down your hedge.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It’s been that way all this year. It’s been that way so many times. All of this war is that way.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source