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:
One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,
One Nation evermore!
But what most showed the vanity of life
Was to behold the nations all on fire.
Your bounty is beyond my speaking;
But though my mouth be dumb, my heart shall thank you.
For the helmsman is recognized in the tempest; in the warfare the soldier is proved.
L'ingratitude attire les reproches comme la reconnaissance attire de nouveaux bienfaits.
I never saw any one like him. He is steel! He would go through you like a sword!
Victory won by violence is tantamount to defeat, for it is momentary.
Little generals and painted gods raise armies to waste lives and goods and spoil the sacred earth.