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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:

I did nothing during the war that was not also done by hundreds of thousands of Austrians, that was my duty as a soldier.

Kurt Waldheim

The United States has the luxury of being very far from the front. Unfortunately, information war isn’t geographical — so, America, welcome to the war.

Eerik-Niiles Kross America, welcome to the war (2016)

My national defense policy is to prepare for war, but not to provoke.

Hou Yu-ih Hou Yu-ih (2023)

Normally, cultures don't fight. That is why they are cultures: because they do not wage wars.

Ivica Osim

What should we do to avoid the nuclear war, or is it already a given? It certainly seems that way.

Olga Skabeyeva

Propaganda is the kitchen of war, Propaganda is war itself. First comes the militarisation of national holidays, then the news is replaced by propaganda shows.

Dmitry Muratov

Before us is a nation at war with itself but in denial because an inept government refuses to take responsibility for governance.

Ann-Kio Briggs Nigeria on brink of self destruction over bad governance —Briggs (2018)

The hardest thing is always getting to the starting line and having the courage to do it. Most adventures fail because they are never done.

Jonas Deichmann

People who were born in time to serve for World War I died after the moon landing. You've got a lot of time ahead of you.

Vaush

In science, you are dealing with facts. You prove them or dispute them, not the complicated stories of wars that happened before we were born.

Alice Nabatanzi

To those to whom war is necessary it is just; and a resort to arms is righteous in those to whom no means of assistance remain except by arms.

Livy

Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.

Muhammad Ali

Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.

Ayn Rand

Ragnarok is coming. When the sky splits asunder and the dark powers of Muspell march out on their war journey, Frey will wish he still had his sword.

Neil Gaiman Norse Mythology (2017)

There is a great streak of violence in every human being. If it is not channeled and understood, it will break out in war and madness.

Sam Peckinpah

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Albert Einstein

At first Laing found something alienating about the concrete landscape of the project — an architecture designed for war, on the unconscious level if no other.

J. G. Ballard High-Rise (1975)

Accurst be he that first invented war.

Christopher Marlowe Tamburlaine (1588)

We love because Love sets us free, and we say things that we once never even had the courage to whisper to ourselves.

Paulo Coelho Manuscript Found in Accra (2012)

Unless one lives and loves in the trenches it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.

Audre Lorde Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

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