Famous Quotes & Sayings

Ernest Hemingway

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

James Carafano

Sometimes the enormity of war overwhelms the truth that all great struggles are just the sum of individual stories. Each is more than just the story of one soldier's service and sacrifice. Their service ripples across their families, friends and their communities. Memorial Day reminds us it is the noble sacrifice of many that makes us who we are.

Jack Straw

Holocaust Memorial Day is intended as an inclusive commemoration of all the individuals and communities who suffered as a result of the Holocaust - not only Jews, but also Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, political prisoners and dozens of ethnic and other minorities.

George W. Bush

Their sacrifice was great, but not in vain. All Americans and every free nation on earth can trace their liberty to the white markers of places like Arlington National Cemetery. And may God keep us ever grateful.

George W. Bush

Looking across this field, we see the scale of heroism and sacrifice. All who are buried here understood their duty. All stood to protect America. And all carried with them memories of a family that they hoped to keep safe by their sacrifice.

George William Curtis

Patriotism is the vital condition of national permanence.

Howard Zinn

Memorial Day should be a day for putting flowers on graves and planting trees. Also, for destroying the weapons of death that endanger us more than they protect us, that waste our resources and threaten our children and grandchildren.

Howard Zinn

Memorial Day will be celebrated ... by the usual betrayal of the dead, by the hypocritical patriotism of the politicians and contractors preparing for more wars, more graves to receive more flowers on future Memorial Days. The memory of the dead deserves a different dedication. To peace, to defiance of governments.

Francis Marion Crawford

They fell, but o'er their glorious grave Floats free the banner of the cause they died to save.

Michel de Montaigne

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

John Paul Jones

I have not yet begun to fight!

Marcus Garvey

Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people.

Marcus Garvey

Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom.

Tom DeLay

The architects of this wickedness will find no safe harbor in this world. We will chase our enemies to the furthest corners of this Earth. It must be war without quarter, pursuit without rest, victory without qualification

Danica Patrick

On Memorial Day, I was out floating on Lake Norman and came across Denny Hamlin. We struck up a conversation, and one of the first things we were talking about was how much it helped him when he started racing the Cup car and how much it helped his Nationwide program.

Gale Harold

Don't forget who your heroes are, what they mean to you, and why they mean that to you.

Eric Burdon

On Memorial Day, I don't want to only remember the combatants. There were also those who came out of the trenches as writers and poets, who started preaching peace, men and women who have made this world a kinder place to live.

Clarence Darrow

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.

George Washington

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.

George Washington

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

George Orwell

All that was required of them (i.e. the brain-washed masses) was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.

Herbert Croly

The average American is nothing if not patriotic.

James Cromwell

I play an 89-year-old man whose wife has Alzheimer's in a movie called 'Still.' I play a World War II veteran, I acted with my son and it's called 'Memorial Day.'

Some of the shells brought my heart into my mouth; lying there waiting for them was intolerable. I was sure I was going to be blown to pieces.

Henry Ward Beecher

Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism?

Henry Ward Beecher

They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.

Martin Luther

Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.

Philip James Bailey

Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Your silent tents of green We deck with fragrant flowers; Yours has the suffering been, The memory shall be ours.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast, And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.

Maya Angelou

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!

Paddy Chayefsky

It's always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. And it's always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parades.