Quotes from book
Testament of Youth

Testament of Youth
Vera Brittain

Testament of Youth is the first instalment, covering 1900–1925, in the memoir of Vera Brittain . It was published in 1933. Brittain's memoir continues with Testament of Experience, published in 1957, and encompassing the years 1925–1950. Between these two books comes Testament of Friendship , which is essentially a memoir of Brittain's close colleague and friend Winifred Holtby. A final segment of memoir, to be called Testament of Faith or Testament of Time, was planned by Brittain but remained unfinished at her death.

Vera Brittain photo

“How futile it had all been, that superhuman gallantry! It had amounted, in the end, to nothing but a passionate gesture of negation—the negation of all that the centuries had taught themselves through long eons of pain.”

Vera Brittain book Testament of Youth

Source: Testament of Youth (1933), Chapter XII 'Another Stranger'

Vera Brittain photo

“We should never be at the mercy of Providence if only we understood that we ourselves are Providence.”

Vera Brittain book Testament of Youth

Source: Testament of Youth (1933), Chapter 10

Vera Brittain photo

“For a woman as for a man, marriage might enormously help or devastatingly hinder the growth of her power to contribute something impersonally valuable to the community in which she lived, but it was not that power, and could not be regarded as an end in itself. Nor, even, were children ends in themselves; it was useless to go on producing human beings merely in order that they, in their sequence, might produce others, and never turn from this business of continuous procreation to the accomplishment of some definite and lasting piece of work.”

Vera Brittain book Testament of Youth

Source: Testament of Youth (1933), Chapter 11

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“I don't think victory over death… is anything so superficial as a person fulfilling their normal span of life. It can be twofold; a victory over death by the man who faces it for himself without fear, and a victory by those who, loving him, know that death is but a little thing compared with the fact that he lived and was the kind of person he was.”

Vera Brittain book Testament of Youth

Source: Testament of Youth (1933), Chapter 12 [quoting a 1924 letter]

Vera Brittain photo

“Oh, life!”

Vera Brittain book Testament of Youth

I silently petitioned the future... if I do finally decide to marry G. and have a family — and I’m not absolutely certain, yet, that I really want to do either — please grant that I have only daughters; I’m afraid, in the world as it is, to have a son. Our generation is condemned, condemned, and the League, and all that it stands for, is only a brittle toy in the hands of ruthless, primeval forces!”
Source: Testament of Youth (1933), Chapter XII 'Another Stranger'

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