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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.

Random quote on Memorial Day

Most quoted on memorial day:

“We cannot have another world war. War is the wrong word. We should ban the term ‘World War III’ and say instead apocalypse or holocaust.”

Golo Mann

Wars are begun by frightened men. They fear war, but more than that, they fear what will happen if they don't start one — or take equivalent action, I suppose.

Tom Clancy Red Rabbit (2002)

I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.

Václav Havel

Something in their history has moved them to patience. Wise leaders do not go to war with enemies, not even evil enemies, unless they have thought it through to the end.

Sheri S. Tepper The Margarets (2007)

When once death has arrived, it does not return. So ever remain ready for it.

Shaqiq al-Balkhi The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004)

Am I alive? Death seems so hard to pin down in this century.

Sean McMullen The Centurion's Empire (1998)

Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one.

Theodore Roosevelt

Death to the killers, bringing light to life.

Stephen Spender

I leave this rule for others when I'm dead
Be always sure you're right — THEN GO AHEAD!

Davy Crockett A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834)

You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.

Joan Baez Daybreak (1968)

I'm going to get that bloody bastard if I die in the attempt.

James Clavell King Rat (1962)

Thunder-spasms the waking be
Into Life from Apathy:
Life, not Death, is in the gale, —
Let the coming Doom prevail!

Bayard Taylor The Poet's Journal (1863)

Death is hard on your trail in this wilderness–
the end of you and all that you amass.
Suffering at the beginning, regret at the end,
and in the end your attachment trample you.

Sarmad Kashani Sarmad, Martyr to Love Divine, 1st Edition (2005)

One time is much like another to death. She comes when she will. So why give over your mind to worry?

Raymond E. Feist Magician: Apprentice (1982)

Outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.

Joseph Heller Catch-22 (1961)

The national religion in the United States is worship of all things military. And journalists are its high priests.

Glenn Greenwald

The dead walk among us. Zombies, ghouls — no matter what their label — these somnambulists are the greatest threat to humanity, other than humanity itself.

Max Brooks The Zombie Survival Guide (2003)

I distrust all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs and human personalities. Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of the sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom.

Lin Yutang The Importance of Living (1937)

I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life.

Maya Angelou Goal Mapping : How to Turn Your Dreams into Realities (2006)

The only sane policy for the world is that of abolishing war.

Linus Pauling

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