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:

While expressing gratitude seems innocent enough, it is a revolutionary idea. In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness.

Robin Wall Kimmerer Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)

Violent interactions are difficult because they go against the grain of normal interaction rituals. The tendency to become entrained in each other’s rhythms and emotions means that when the interaction is at cross-purposes—an antagonistic interaction—people experience a pervasive feeling of tension . . . [A]t higher levels of intensity . . . [this tension] shades over into fear.

Randall Collins Violence (2008)

Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that nationalism is “the first stage to Nazism” is not only wrong but dangerous because he has the power to mistreat those who espouse nationalism within the current borders of the Russian Federation, according to Anatoly Nesmiyan who blogs under the screen name El Murid.

Paul A. Goble

The truly brave,
When they behold the brave oppressed with odds,
Are touched with a desire to shield and save:—
A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods
Are they—now furious as the sweeping wave,
Now moved with pity; even as sometimes nods
The rugged tree unto the summer wind,
Compassion breathes along the savage mind.

Lord Byron

God has chosen little nations as the vessels by which He carries His choicest wines to the lips of humanity to rejoice their hearts, to exalt their vision, to strengthen their faith, and if we had stood by when two little nations (Belgium and Servia) were being crushed and broken by the brutal hands of barbarians, our shame would have rung down the everlasting ages.

David Lloyd George