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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:

The lonely billows of the Atlantic, where every breeze speaks of courage and liberty.

Frederick Douglass The Heroic Slave (1853)

To love truth, and to serve under its banner, come what may, that is courage truly, which will endure and stand the test of endless ages.

J. E. Casely Hayford Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (1911)

India wants to avoid a war at all costs but it is not a one-sided affair, you cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

Indira Gandhi

Only those who have dared to let go can dare to reenter.

Meister Eckhart Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2007)

My poems please the brave:
My poems, short and sincere,
Have the force of steel
Which forges swords.

José Martí Simple Verses (1891)

Optimism is true moral courage.

Ernest Shackleton South with Shackleton (1949)

Exercises cultivated self-reliance - the foundation of courage.

Alexander Suvorov

The defence of internal peace and order constitutes the sacred mission of a nation's armed forces and that is what we have carried out.

Francisco Franco The Tyrants : 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption (2006)

War was rapidly doing what war did—making ugly everything it touched.

Harry Turtledove Southern Victory (1997)

A patriot is someone who cares what happens in their country.

Billy Bragg

But we hate the system - capitalism, militarism, reaction – and that system we scorn with a healthy, burning, eternal hatred.

Ture Nerman

An absolute doctrine is impossible, for once a doctrine and its articles become dogma, woe to the army which lies enthralled under its spell.

J. F. C. Fuller Men Against Fire. S.L.A. Marshall (1947)

The thing we have to develop in the world today is the world citizen and bring to an end this crude nationalism which has been the source of so much world hate.

Alice Bailey The Unfinished Autobiography (1951)

In our system of universal military training, barrack life must be reduced to a minimum, so that ultimately the Red barracks may completely disappear.

Nikolai Bukharin

Courage is more important than to be deceived by shallow victory waiting for a delayed defeat.

Dejan Stojanovic

The Egyptian Army is a great patriotic army, The Egyptian Army is a very noble and tough army, and it's toughness comes from it's nobility.

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

He is blind to the dead, to the burning villages, to the starving children. As is the Rebel. Two blind armies, able to see nothing but one another.

Glen Cook The Black Company (1984)

I make a call, to all daughters and sons of our nation, to support the war effort, each according to their abilities.

Roch Marc Christian Kaboré Roch Marc Christian Kaboré (2021)

“There is only one term for this war,” said the old man with the sunglasses. “‘Clusterfuck.’ Cluster as in ‘cluster’ and fuck as in ‘fuck.’ No more need be said.”

Jeffrey Ford

As so often, a quick war was followed by a slow peace.

Chris Given-Wilson Edward II: The Terrors of Kingship (2016)

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