As a rule, people are afraid of truth. Each truth we discover in nature or social life, destroys the crutches on which we need to lean.

Soldiers and peasants lived together on friendly terms; they knew each other and their everyday routines, and trusted each other; they shook their heads together over the war.

And suddenly, like light in darkness, the real truth broke in upon me; the simple fact of Man, which I had forgotten, which had lain deep buried and out of sight; the idea of community, of unity.

Slogans which deafened us so that we could not hear the truth.

In a quiet Franciscan monastery kind and silent monks looked after me. After many weeks I was discharged. Unfit for further service.

I saw the dead without really seeing them.

How happy I am to go to the front at last. To do my bit. To prove with my life what I think I feel.