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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:

Protection and patriotism are reciprocal.

John C. Calhoun

It's a psychological onslaught, an economic one, a diplomatic one, a military onslaught – a total onslaught.

P. W. Botha

War is pillage versus resistance and if illusions of magnitude could be transmuted into ideals of magnanimity, peace might be realized.

Marianne Moore

The only salvation for us is to stop being an incoherent, loose mob and to change into a strongly organized, disciplined army.

Roman Dmowski

Let’s not have any more wars to end all war.

William Feather Featherisms (2008)

Gratitude is the vision of the Gives, not of the gift-it comes from God Himself.

Al-Qushayri The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2002)

“We cannot have another world war. War is the wrong word. We should ban the term ‘World War III’ and say instead apocalypse or holocaust.”

Golo Mann

Wars are begun by frightened men. They fear war, but more than that, they fear what will happen if they don't start one — or take equivalent action, I suppose.

Tom Clancy Red Rabbit (2002)

I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.

Václav Havel

Something in their history has moved them to patience. Wise leaders do not go to war with enemies, not even evil enemies, unless they have thought it through to the end.

Sheri S. Tepper The Margarets (2007)

I'm always embarrassed when people say that I'm courageous. Soldiers are courageous. Policemen are courageous. Firemen are courageous. I just have a thick hide and disregard what silly people say.

Thomas Sowell

Politics and nationalism often play far greater roles than conservation in the decision-making process.

Mark Kurlansky Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (1997)

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

James Neil Hollingworth

Outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals.

Joseph Heller Catch-22 (1961)

The national religion in the United States is worship of all things military. And journalists are its high priests.

Glenn Greenwald

I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life.

Maya Angelou Goal Mapping : How to Turn Your Dreams into Realities (2006)

The only sane policy for the world is that of abolishing war.

Linus Pauling

To gulp down anger is the most courageous act one can perform. One who does it becomes humble.

Meher Baba Lord Meher (1986)

It should be realised that men will take enormous risks rather than be bored. War has been used before now to prevent a bored populace from getting into mischief, at the expense of its rulers.

J. B. Priestley

Not only Ukraine will have to be denazified. The war against Europe and the world is developing a more specific outline, which means we'll have to act differently and to act much more harshly.

Vladimir Solovyov

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