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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:

In the Cold War, I was pro-American. The world needed a counter-weight to the evils of expansionist, imperial communism.

Andrew Sullivan

What people really suffer from is immaturity. Among mature people war would not be a problem — it would be impossible.

Peace Pilgrim

We no longer demand anything, we want war.

Joachim von Ribbentrop

Since what unnumbered year
Hast thou kept watch and ward
And o’er the buried Land of Fear
So grimly held thy guard?

Henry Howard Brownell

One cannot fight an enemy if one does not even have the courage to identify him.

David Lane

The war has now moved from China to South Eastern Asia, and is about to enter the stage of the war for all Asia.

Toshio Shiratori

If there is a hell, then I'll be in good company with a lot of fighter pilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war.

Timothy McVeigh

Those who start wars never fight them, and those who fight wars never like them.

Michael Franti

Well, everybody got stupid now and then, especially in war.

Poul Anderson

It is perfectly reasonable to despair of a world where the Nobel Committee gives the Peace Prize to a man running a war.

Martin Firrell

Once, when Nadir was told that there was no war in paradise, he was reported to have asked: "How can there be any delights there?".

Nader Shah

If one perceives of it all – the entire War or even life as a whole – as a scene in the theater of 'infinity', many things are much easier to bear.

Max Beckmann

Courage… is not a selfish attribute: it is only possible if you are pursuing a wider and more worthy goal.

Ted Malloch Doing Virtuous Business (2011)

The story of their gallantry came to epitomize a spirit of courage, duty and self-sacrifice.

Steve Turner The Band That Played On (2011)

The Trojan War without Homer was nothing more than a battle over trade routes.

B. W. Powe Towards a Canada of Light (2006)

In the old days people had no time to harm the environment because they were busy doing harm to themselves, in the War, for instance.

Elfriede Jelinek Wonderful, Wonderful Times (1990)

One day, thought Stone, there will be a war and when you get to the front you will last five minutes before someone puts a bullet in your back.

Christopher Wood Terrible Hard", Says Alice (1970)

One of the most dangerous phases of self-interest in industry has been the part it has played in bringing about wars between nations.

Kirby Page

Whether we like the idea or not, war has again and again been seen as the great auditor, the special testing time, of a nation's strength and fibre.

Geoffrey Blainey

It is physically impossible to win a war by arresting an invading army and trying each of its soldiers.

Curtis Yarvin

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