Citations

I'm not interested in politics... But I am against war, because war is futile. Ten or twenty years afterward, one reflects that millions have died and all for nothing. One has found friends among one's old enemies, and enemies among one's friends.

[on J'accuse (1919)] The conditions in which we filmed were profoundly moving... These men had come straight from the Front - from Verdun - and they were due back eight days later. They played the dead knowing that in all probability they'd be dead themselves before long. Within a few weeks of their return, eighty per cent had been killed.

My greatest mistake was ever to have compromised. My greatest achievement has been to survive.

[on being asked by a French general, while filming the opening sequence of J'accuse (1919), in which hundreds of soldiers come together to form the films title on the battlefield, whom he was accusing] I am accusing war... I am accusing man... I am accusing universal stupidity.