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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:

Maybe those nihilist philosophers are right; maybe this is all we can expect of the universe, a relentless crushing of life and spirit, because the equilibrium state of the cosmos is death...

Arthur C. Clarke The Light of Other Days (2000)

War is murder writ large.

Carl Sagan Cosmos (1980)

Even in times of war, you can see current events in their historical perspective, provided that your passion for the truth prevails over your bias in favor of your own nation.

Leó Szilárd

The threat of military force is holding the world to ransom, and our immediate task is...to resist aggression.

Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

In short, the anomaly of war is that the best men get themselves killed while crafty men find their chance to govern in a manner contrary to justice.

Émile Chartier Propos sur le bonheur [On Happiness (1928)

I’m not one hundred percent clear on the clinical definition of death, but I’m pretty sure that lying trapped in my own unbreathing body meets some of the requirements.

Charles Stross The Fuller Memorandum (2010)

And all now is war
Where so lately there was peace,
and the sweet brotherhood, the use
of tilled fields.

Charles Olson The Kingfishers (1950)

War does strange things to truth.

Alastair Reynolds Galactic North (2006)

Even when there is a struggle between nations it cannot be turned into a war of religions.

Shlomo Amar

There are tremendous actual differences in values. Some value systems, such as the ones that motivate "honor killings", deserve to be morally condemned and rejected. But there are many other variations in values within the bounds of decency.

Richard Stallman The Zeitgeist Movement (2009)

In the Middle East, the opposition is quite different than the opposition in advanced countries. In our countries, the opposition takes the form of explosions, assassinations, killings.

Muammar Gaddafi

The Russian invasion of Ukraine marks a turning point. It is our duty to do our best to support Ukraine in defending itself against Putin's invading army.

Olaf Scholz

War was simply a slaughterhouse on wheels, he thought. For most men, soldiering was tragedy expressed as a profession.

Simon Sebag Montefiore One Night in Winter (2013)

From a distance you look like my friend
Even though we are at war
From a distance I just cannot comprehend
What all this war is for.

Julie Gold

You can't bomb for a humane reason. What we should do is just Mother Teresa them to death with love. It's that old hippie nonsense but it's still the best stuff there is.

Ken Kesey Trip of a Lifetime (1999)

A foreign military leader whose daring was feared by those who profited by it.

Charles de Gaulle On General Douglas MacArthur (1951)

The wise soul feareth not death; rather she sometimes striveth for death, she goeth beyond to meet her. Yet eternity maintaineth her substance throughout time, immensity throughout space, universal form throughout motion.

Giordano Bruno De immenso (1591)

Is there beyond the silent night
An endless day?
Is death a door that leads to light?
We cannot say.

Robert G. Ingersoll The Devil (1899)

One should be prepared to receive ninety-nine percent of an enemy's attack and stare death right in the face in order to illumine the Path.

Morihei Ueshiba Budo (1938)

Protectionism and militarism are united in an unholy but yet a valid marriage: and the one and the other are in my firm conviction alike the foes of freedom.

William Ewart Gladstone

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