#w

Genius is an overused word. The world has known only about a half dozen geniuses. I got only fairly near. ↗

— Fritz Kreisler

#dozen #fairly #genius #geniuses #got

I saw a great many men die afterwards, some suffering horribly, but I do not recall any death that affected me quite so much as that of this first victim in my platoon. ↗

— Fritz Kreisler

#afterwards #any #death #die #first

IN trying to recall my impressions during my short war duty as an officer in the Austrian Army, I find that my recollections of this period are very uneven and confused. ↗

— Fritz Kreisler

#austrian #confused #during #duty #find

Life that only a few hours before had glowed with enthusiasm and exultation, suddenly paled and sickened. ↗

— Fritz Kreisler

#enthusiasm #exultation #few #had #hours

My wife volunteered her services as Red Cross nurse, insisting upon being sent to the front, in order to be as near me as could be, but it developed later that no nurse was allowed to go farther than the large troop hospitals far in the rear of the actual operations. ↗

— Fritz Kreisler

#allowed #being #could #cross #developed

One gets into a strange psychological, almost hypnotic, state of mind while on the firing line which probably prevents the mind's eye from observing and noticing things in a normal way. ↗

— Fritz Kreisler

#eye #firing #gets #hypnotic #into

Signs of fatigue soon manifested themselves more and more strongly, and slowly the men dropped out one by one, from sheer exhaustion. No murmur of complaint, however, would be heard. ↗

— Fritz Kreisler

#dropped #exhaustion #fatigue #heard #however

Suddenly, at about ten o'clock, a dull thud sounded somewhere far away from us, and simultaneously we saw a small white round cloud about half a mile ahead of us where the shrapnel had exploded. The battle had begun. ↗

— Fritz Kreisler

#ahead #away #battle #begun #clock

The moral effect of the thundering of one's own artillery is most extraordinary, and many of us thought that we had never heard any more welcome sound than the deep roaring and crashing that started in at our rear. ↗

— Fritz Kreisler

#artillery #crashing #deep #effect #extraordinary

The outbreak of the war found my wife and me in Switzerland, where we were taking a cure. ↗

— Fritz Kreisler

#found #me #outbreak #switzerland #taking