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Veterans Day Quotes

Nothing on this page was written for Veterans Day. It is built from four pages, War, Courage, Patriotism and Gratitude, and the mix is not tidy. The war page contains plenty of writers who hated it, and the patriotism page contains Bertrand Russell remarking in 1962 that patriots talk of dying for their country and never of killing for it.

That makes the page more honest than a greeting card and less convenient. If you need a line of thanks, the gratitude entries are the safest place to look. If you want something that sounds like a speech, read the notes first, because some of the best-known patriotic lines here are flagged as misattributed.

Random quote on Veterans Day

Most quoted on veterans day:

A society in motion, with many overlapping groups, in their dance. And above all, a society in which peace is not lack of war, but a drive toward unity.

Muriel Rukeyser The Life of Poetry (1949)

Any information—even if you suspect your enemy is feeding it to you—is useful, son. More wars are lost to lack of information than are lost to lack of courage.

Brandon Sanderson Rhythm of War (2020)

When war becomes a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour.

Jean-Baptiste Say A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832)

There is no War on Terrorism; it is the Great Game speeded up. The difference is the rampant nature of the superpower, ensuring infinite dangers for us all.

John Pilger

Trade is the oldest and most important economic nexus among nations. Indeed, trade along with war ha been central to the evolution of international relations.

Robert Gilpin The Political Economy of International Relations (1987)

We have a war on our moral fiber. We will not allow the godless few to destroy our moral foundation.

Herman Cain

If war is glorified, it tends to eclipse the policies it is meant to serve.

Randal Marlin Propaganda & The Ethics Of Persuasion (2002)

The world needs you and it needs the things you carry. So I wish you the best of all possible journeys and the courage to speak softly.

Susan Cain

Empires of conquest don’t last, Administrator Perry. They hollow out from within, from the greed of rulers and the endless appetite for war.

John Scalzi The Last Colony (2007)

Then I guess Pakistan would have won (the 1971 war).

Sam Manekshaw

Honor without intelligence is a disaster. Honor could lose the war.

Michael Shaara The Killer Angels (1974)

It is very silly indeed to build vessels of War so strong as to last a hundred years. They are obsolete in less than ten years.

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher Records (1919)

Investment in war must come at the cost of public disgrace...

Medea Benjamin

Imperialism just means war, and as long as America and NATO are there, war won’t disappear. Time will confirm it all, let’s wait and see.

Zhang Zhaozhong

You cannot go into a war zone and come away unchanged. You don’t have to see the sorrow with your eyes because you can feel it with your heart.

Jill Biden

When you send Americans to war, their mandate should be to lethally dominate the battlefield. If that makes you uneasy, keep us at home.

Pete Hegseth The War on Warriors (2024)

This book is dedicated to the men and women we have lost in the Twenty Years War.

Tim Kennedy Scars and Stripes (2022)

We will kill everyone on the battlefield. Take no more prisoners of war!

Yevgeny Prigozhin

It’s an insane idea, yes, but hell, this is war. If insanity works, a general is duty-bound to use it.

Andy Duncan Beluthahatchie and Other Stories (2000)

They wanted peace and they fought for thirty years to be sure of it. They did not learn then, and have not learned since, that war only breeds war.

Norman Davies Europe: A History (1996)

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