The pen is mightier than the sword...if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.
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:
Never yet did base dishonour blur our name
But with our sword we wiped away the blot.
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip.
Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword
And won thy love doing thee injuries.
"Return with what speed you may, and let our swords hereafter shine together!"
"Your fingers would remember their old strength better, if they grasped a sword-hilt."
"Come!" said Aragorn. "This is the hour when we draw swords together!"
Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won.
Why, courage then! what cannot be avoided
'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.
When discord dreadful bursts her brazen bars,
And shatters locks to thunder forth her wars.