Skip to content

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:

If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.

Carl Sagan Cosmos (1980)

"Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."

Carl Sandburg

Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would gladly yield every honor which has been accorded me in war.

Douglas MacArthur Macarthur and the American Century: A Reader (2001)

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.

William S. Burroughs

Courage is the main quality of leadership, in my opinion, no matter where it is exercised. Usually it implies some risk — especially in new undertakings.

Walt Disney The Magic of Teamwork (1997)

Mental clarity is the child of courage, not the other way around.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.

Maya Angelou Rainbow in the Cloud: The Wisdom and Spirit of Maya Angelou (2014)

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

Arthur Schopenhauer Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

We live in a universe ruled by very few laws, but the redoubling of violence by violence is one of the main ones.

Kim Stanley Robinson The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)

To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.

George MacDonald Mary Marston (1881)

All of us who served in one war or another know very well that all wars are the glory and the agony of the young.

Gerald Ford

Courage is what others can't see, what is never affirmed. It is made of what you have thrown away and then come back for.

Leonard Cohen

I don't underrate the value of military knowledge, but if men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail.

Ulysses S. Grant A History of Militarism: Romance and Realities of a Profession (1937)

We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war.

Barack Obama

The only certainty in war is human suffering, uncertain costs, unintended consequences.

Barack Obama

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it.

Jack Handey Deep Thoughts: Inspiration for the Uninspired (1992)

Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war.

John McCain

Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time.

Wilhelm Reich The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)

Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war.

Siegfried Sassoon Robert Nichols in his introduction to The Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918)

The best way to be thankful is to use the goods the gods provide you.

Anthony Trollope The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867)

Related topics