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:
This is a time for action — not for war, but for mobilization of every bit of peace machinery.
There is a fundamental inconsistency between war and freedom.
It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism.
Happy the state which in times of peace is yet prepared for war.
All wars are civil ones; for it is still man spilling his own blood, tearing out his own bowels.
Tell him your country fought a war so you wouldn't have to answer to kings and queens."
It may be that we shall witness scenes surpassing in horror even those of the recent war.
The Chinese once made war upon us, but were reduced to seek peace.