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:
Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.
When the military man approaches, the world locks up its spoons and packs off its womankind.
A grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharg'd.
Let never day nor night unhallow'd pass,
But still remember what the Lord hath done.
And each man stands with his face in the light
Of his own drawn sword,
Ready to do what a hero can.
Cowards may fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.
As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.
I do love
My country's good with a respect more tender,
More holy and profound, than mine own life.
O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel;
The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs.