Memorial Day Quotations

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory.

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

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.

The best road to progress is freedom's road.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

The willingness of America's veterans to sacrifice for our country has earned them our lasting gratitude.

Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

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.

True patriotism isn't cheap. It's about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going.

I am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread.

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.

As America celebrates Memorial Day, we pay tribute to those who have given their lives in our nation's wars.

At Concerned Veterans for America, we've made the case that the defense budget could be targeted for spending reform, but in a targeted fashion that genuinely changes unsustainable spending trajectories while preserving U.S. defense capacity.

As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity.

Three times a year, theres Strategicon convention, and I go for the board games. It happens Presidents Day, Labor Day, and Memorial Day weekends. You go and take a look at the new board games and meet a couple of board game designers, and you can check out games you dont own from the library and then return them.

Memorial Day this year is especially important as we are reminded almost daily of the great sacrifices that the men and women of the Armed Services make to defend our way of life.

May Heaven be propitious, and smile on the cause of my country.

I have long believed that sacrifice is the pinnacle of patriotism.

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

The average American is nothing if not patriotic.

These fallen heroes represent the character of a nation who has a long history of patriotism and honor - and a nation who has fought many battles to keep our country free from threats of terror.

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

Thank you for the sacrifices you and your families are making. Our Vietnam Veterans have taught us that no matter what are positions may be on policy, as Americans and patriots, we must support all of our soldiers with our thoughts and our prayers.

From 1971 onwards, the Memorial Day holiday was officially observed on the last Monday in May and became the unofficial start of the summer, with barbecues, blockbuster movie openings and mattress sales.

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

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.

America is hope. It is compassion. It is excellence. It is valor.

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.

A hero is one who knows how to hang on one minute longer.

Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.

It's horrible to think that a small cadre of people would manipulate that information. I mean, for God's sake, we've admitted that we were experimenting on our veterans with mustard gas. So there is no security question. It can't possibly be the reason.

A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain.

Ceremonies are important. But our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops, and once-a-year Memorial Day ceremonies. We honor the dead best by treating the living well.

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.

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.

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.

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic.

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

And each man stands with his face in the light. Of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

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

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

I was born in Munich, and my father was stationed in Salzburg. For the first three years of my life, I lived in Austria back when the American Army was still in Austria. I grew up subsequently in posts around the country around veterans.

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America.

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

Nowadays, many Americans have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At cemeteries across the country, the graves of the fallen are sadly ignored, and worse, neglected.

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

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.

For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.

Part of the American dream is to live long and die young. Only those Americans who are willing to die for their country are fit to live.

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.'

Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion.

The real war will never get in the books.

God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.

I am going to take something I learned over in Israel. Their Independence Day is preceded the 24 hours before with Memorial Day, so it gives them a chance to serve and reflect and then celebrate. I am going to try to start that tradition here in America.

While there are towns and cities still planning Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some think the day is for honoring anyone who has died, not just those fallen in service to our country.

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

In war there is no substitute for victory.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Valor grows by daring, fear by holding back.

What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - intellect and resources - to do some thing about them.

Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.

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

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

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.

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.

Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle.

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

All gave some, Some gave all.

I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day. I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did.

We sit at our consoles and play "Gears of War", but we don't see images from war. We don't turn on the news and see the evidence of war, the result of war. Maybe twice a year, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, we'll go out, we'll hang our flags, we'll try to inculcate in our children some sense of national honor for the fallen. But really, we don't see it. We just don't see the pictures. There's no drive-by on the freeway of death up close. So we don't really see bravery.

I figure if Doc is right about the time I have left,I should wrap up my adolescence in the next few days, get into my early productive stages about the third week of school, go through my midlife crisis during Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, redouble my efforts at productivity and think about my legacy, say, Easter, and start cashing in my 401(k)s a couple weeks before Memorial Day.

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.

However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.

Happy Memorial Day! Thank you to all our service men and women past and present. You are not forgotten!

If you had seen one day of war, you would pray to God that you would never see another.

137 years later, Memorial Day remains one of America's most cherished patriotic observances. The spirit of this day has not changed - it remains a day to honor those who died defending our freedom and democracy.

Go to a nearby military cemetery and look at the American flags stuck on each grave and think of the person buried there who was killed for global domination or for the blunders and egomania of our leadership. And remember, for every person buried there, 10 more loved that person and were shattered by the loss. Instead of saluting, softly say: 'I'm sorry.' ... We need to make Memorial Day a relic of the past.

In the United States alone, we spend seven times as much on war as on education. There's something wrong there. On this Memorial Day, we should certainly honor those who have died at war, but we should dedicate this day, not so much to their memory, but to the search for a way to end the idiocy of the wars that killed them.

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.

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

It was the transcendent fortitude and steadfastness of these men who in adversity and in suffering through the darkest hour of our history held faithful to an ideal. Here men endured that a nation might live.

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.

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.

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

Patriotism is the vital condition of national permanence.

Ask not what I can do for you. Ask what you can do for me

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.

For the love of country they accepted death.

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.