Memorial Day Quotes
This page is assembled from three others: War, Death and Gratitude. There is no memorial collection underneath it. One poem is filed against the day itself, Joyce Kilmer’s, in Trees and Other Poems (1914), and it opens with a bugle that, he says, is not singing of war today.
The rest is whatever the three source pages rate highest, so it leans toward poetry and toward writers who saw war up close. Several famous lines about death and sacrifice carry flags here, so read the note on a quote’s own page before you attach a name to it.
Ethical obligation has to subordinate itself to the totalitarian nature of war.
Every battle, every war - is fought for things worth dying for.
If wars can be started with lies, they can be stopped by truth.
I want you to make love, not war, I know you've heard it before.
In the real world, people die, and no self-promoting asshole in a fucking leotard can stop it.
Death is not the opposite of life; it exists as a part of them.
Ay me! what perils do environ
The man that meddles with cold iron!
Oh, God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood.
For dying is not to be feared—it is the final comfort. As we all learn, eventually.
So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.