A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.
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.
Most quoted on veterans day:
To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.
You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war.
Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder.
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote.
Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation.
The American flag has been forced to retire. This is intolerable.
A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.
Make us enemies of every people on earth, but prevent a civil war.
The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy.