As soon as man, expert from time, has found
The key of life, it opes the gates of death.
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.
The flames of Moscow were the aurora of the liberty of the world.
But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble.
The armies most successful in war are those in which every combatant has a clear conscience.
For a flying foe
Discreet and provident conquerors build up
A bridge of gold.
Black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart.
The children born of thee are sword and fire,
Red ruin, and the breaking up of law.
To be prepared for war is onto the most effectual means of preserving peace.
"Farewell, friend. I was a thousand times more evil than thou!"
By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I’ll kill him; by this sword, I will.