They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the romanticized notion of dying for one's country, emphasizing the harsh reality of modern warfare.
Ernest Hemingway's quote challenges the traditional glorification of sacrificing one's life for patriotism. It reflects the grim and often senseless nature of contemporary warfare, suggesting that the romanticized beliefs about honor in dying for one's country have been replaced by a stark and brutal truth where death occurs without purpose or nobility.
In practice
In a speech on Veterans Day to highlight the realities of war.
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.
How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.
When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.
There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.
There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. Weβve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.
Not taking a risk is a risk. That's how I see it.
And there came a point in my treatment where I couldn't see that end in sight. And that was the most challenging, I think, to know how to kind of anchor yourself when you're swimming in a sea of uncertainty.
Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
Few men are born brave. Many become so through training and force of discipline.
There are always a lot of people so afraid of rocking the boat that they stop rowing. We can never get ahead that way.
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