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:
A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.
War is not popular. People get killed, and body bags end up coming back.
When one person can initiate war, by its definition, a republic no longer exists.
Nowhere are our calculations more frequently upset than in war.
My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time.
How many more of our loved ones need to die in this senseless war?
Bonaparte's wish is Peace, nay that he is afraid of war to the last degree.
The art of war, which I take to be the highest perfection of human knowledge.
"Plan A is to hitch a ride out of here. But if they want a war, then plan B is to win it."
It is better to learn war early from friends, than late from enemies.