Veterans Day famous quotes
04-17-2025
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Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
As a 22-year Army Veteran who served in Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, and as a Civilian Advisor to the Afghan Army in Operation Enduring Freedom, I understand both the gravity of giving the order, and the challenge of carrying it out.
-- Allen West -
Those who cannot bravely face danger are the slaves of their attackers.
-- Aristotle -
Well, look at what people are doing for returned veterans now. The wounded warriors. They're working hard to make the wounded veterans feel that they are loved and welcomed home, unlike Vietnam. It was not a very kind, gentle world then. I think we are kinder and gentler.
-- Barbara Bush -
Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.
-- Benjamin Disraeli -
Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.
-- Bernard Malamud -
Our veterans accepted the responsibility to defend America and uphold our values when duty called.
-- Bill Shuster -
America's veterans and troops serving abroad today fought hard to preserve our red, white and blue, from the Revolutionary War to today's Global War Against Terrorism, and Congress' action today is appropriate for one of our most sacred symbols.
-- Bill Shuster -
Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.
-- Billy Graham -
War should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.
-- Carl von Clausewitz -
In a fire, you have to be thoughtful; you have to have a certain kind of intuitive smarts that the veterans have. I'm not there yet, despite the Stanford degree.
-- Caroline Paul -
Honoring the sacrifices many have made for our country in the name of freedom and democracy is the very foundation of Veterans Day.
-- Charles Rangel -
It is Veterans Day, when we honor everyone who served in all of the campaigns. We honor them with dignity and respect, and of course mattress sales and tire discounts.
-- Craig Ferguson -
On this Veterans Day, let us remember the service of our veterans, and let us renew our national promise to fulfill our sacred obligations to our veterans and their families who have sacrificed so much so that we can live free.
-- Dan Lipinski -
God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.
-- Daniel Webster -
It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence now and independence forever.
-- Daniel Webster -
It is unacceptable that disabled veterans in Illinois rank at the bottom of the list when it comes to disability pay. We owe our disabled veterans more than speeches, parades and monuments.
-- Dick Durbin -
We owe our World War II veterans - and all our veterans - a debt we can never fully repay.
-- Doc Hastings -
Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.
-- Donald Trump -
We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.
-- Douglas MacArthur -
Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
-- Douglas MacArthur -
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.
-- Elmer Davis -
No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.
-- Erich Maria Remarque -
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
-- George Bernard Shaw -
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
-- George Orwell -
Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.
-- George S. Patton -
Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men
-- George S. Patton -
You'll be scared! Sure you'll be scared. Who wouldn't fear having their head completely blown off.
-- Giulio Douhet -
If anyone, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him - it means just what Concord and Lexington meant; what Bunker Hill meant; which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world had ever known - the right of men to their own selves and to their liberties.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
I hope to live long enough to see my surviving comrades march side by side with the Union veterans along Pennsylvania Avenue, and then I will die happy.
-- James Longstreet -
You've been told that you're broken, that you're damaged goods and should be labeled victims. I don't buy it. The truth, instead, is that you are the only folks with the skills, determination, and values to ensure American dominance in this chaotic world.
-- James Mattis -
The willingness of America's veterans to sacrifice for our country has earned them our lasting gratitude.
-- Jeff Miller -
I think America as a whole has come more to terms with separating war from the warrior.
-- Jeffrey Dunn -
We can't equate spending on veterans with spending on defense. Our strength is not just in the size of our defense budget, but in the size of our hearts, in the size of our gratitude for their sacrifice. And that's not just measured in words or gestures.
-- Jennifer Granholm -
You'd have to go a long way to find someone who was more proud and grateful for what our veterans have done for all of us.
-- Jim Davis -
America's Veterans have served their country with the belief that democracy and freedom are ideals to be upheld around the world.
-- John Doolittle -
This year's Veterans Day celebration is especially significant as our country remains committed to fighting the War on Terror and as brave men and women are heroically defending our homeland.
-- John Doolittle -
From the world wars of Europe to the jungles of the Far East, from the deserts of the Middle East to the African continent, and even here in our own hemisphere, our veterans have made the world a better place and America the great country we are today.
-- John Hoeven -
Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway.
-- John Wayne -
A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
-- Joseph Campbell -
The veterans of our military services have put their lives on the line to protect the freedoms that we enjoy. They have dedicated their lives to their country and deserve to be recognized for their commitment.
-- Judd Gregg -
When the peace treaty is signed, the war isn't over for the veterans, or the family. It's just starting.
-- Karl Marlantes -
While we can never truly repay the debt we owe our heroes, the least we should do for our brave veterans is to ensure that the government takes a proactive approach to delivering the services and benefits they have earned, so they can access the care they need and so richly deserve.
-- Kirsten Gillibrand -
While we can't begin to repay the debt we owe our veterans for their brave service, we can certainly take steps to ease the physical, psychological and financial hardships they may be experiencing.
-- Kirsten Gillibrand -
Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not. So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things. What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance. And all music is.
-- Kurt Vonnegut -
How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!
-- Maya Angelou -
Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.
-- Michel de Montaigne -
To those seniors, and especially elderly veterans like myself, I want to tell you this: You are not alone, and you having nothing to be ashamed of. If elder abuse happened to me, it can happen to anyone. I want you to know that you deserve better.
-- Mickey Rooney -
Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.
-- Napoleon Bonaparte -
But this Veterans Day, I believe we should do more than sing the praises of the bravery and patriotism that our veterans have embodied in the past. We should take this opportunity to re-evaluate how we are treating our veterans in the present.
-- Nick Lampson -
It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.
-- Norman Schwarzkopf -
Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar. And still there are things worth fighting for.
-- Norman Schwarzkopf -
The 2.4 million bright, brave, incredibly fit and remarkably talented young Americans who have served in our armed forces since we were attacked on 9-11-01 are all volunteers. As General Petraeus put it during a conversation we had in Afghanistan, 'They all came or stayed, knowing they were going to war.' For more than a decade, these patriots and their loved ones have made extraordinary sacrifices for this country. They embody the classical definition of heroes: those who put themselves at risk for the benefit of others.
-- Oliver North -
All of my high school male teachers were WWII and/or Korean War veterans. They taught my brothers and me the value of service to our country and reinforced what our dad had shown us about the meaning of service.
-- Oliver North -
Have the courage to act instead of react.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes -
Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.
-- Otto von Bismarck -
The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
-- Patrick Henry -
Memorial Day isn't just about honoring veterans, its honoring those who lost their lives. Veterans had the fortune of coming home. For us, that's a reminder of when we come home we still have a responsibility to serve. It's a continuation of service that honors our country and those who fell defending it.
-- Pete Hegseth -
A brave captain is as a root, out of which, as branches, the courage of his soldiers doth spring.
-- Philip Sidney -
Either war is obsolete, or men are.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller -
While only one day of the year is dedicated solely to honoring our veterans, Americans must never forget the sacrifices that many of our fellow countrymen have made to defend our country and protect our freedoms.
-- Randy Neugebauer -
Better than honor and glory, and History's iron pen, Was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow-men.
-- Richard Watson Gilder -
War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.
-- Sebastian Junger -
My heroes are those who risk their lives every day to protect our world and make it a better place - police, firefighters and members of our armed forces.
-- Sidney Sheldon -
To honor our national promise to our veterans, we must continue to improve services for our men and women in uniform today and provide long overdue benefits for the veterans and military retirees who have already served.
-- Solomon Ortiz -
America's veterans embody the ideals upon which America was founded more than 229 years ago.
-- Steve Buyer -
Because all of us believe and understand in the fabric of the common bond of why we call ourselves American is to care for the men and women who wear the uniform; and when they take off the uniform, we care for them when they are veterans.
-- Steve Buyer -
Twenty-five million veterans are living among us today. These men and women selflessly set aside their civilian lives to put on the uniform and serve us.
-- Steve Buyer -
My father had many, many veterans over to the house, and the older I got the more I appreciated their sacrifice.
-- Steven Spielberg -
We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
-- Theodore Roosevelt -
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
-- Thomas Jefferson -
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
-- Thomas Paine -
On Veterans Day, we take time to honor those men and women who bravely serve and have served our nation in the U.S. Armed Forces.
-- Todd Tiahrt -
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, And the white skeletons of young men-I saw them; I saw the debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war; But I saw they were not as was thought; They themselves were fully at rest-they suffer'd not; The living remain'd and suffer'd-the mother suffer'd, And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffer'd, And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.
-- Walt Whitman -
One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.
-- Walter Isaacson -
The most certain way of ensuring victory is to march briskly and in good order against the enemy, always endeavouring to gain ground.
-- Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor -
Have the courage to act instead of react.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. -
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
-- Richard Grenier -
Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves.
-- Carol Lynn Pearson -
In a fire you have to be thoughtful, you have to have a certain kind of intuitive smarts that the veterans have. I'm not there yet, despite the Stanford degree.
-- Caroline Paul
