Memorial Day Quotations | Page 2

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.

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.

Green sods are all their monument; and yet it tells A nobler history than pillared piles, Or the eternal pyramids.

Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.

Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me.

Each of the patriots whom we remember on this day was first a beloved son or daughter, a brother or sister, or a spouse, friend, and neighbor.

To our Soldiers: Thank you again and again, you will always matter, not only on this Memorial Day but every day!

Love for one's country is part of faith.

There's no greater city between Memorial Day and Labor Day than Chicago. It's the single best summer city in America.

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

I have not yet begun to fight!

Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations, that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic.

I used to come out here every Fourth of July as a child to picnic and to swim on the island, to tour the fort and wander through it. And all of that time, I never knew anything about the presence of black soldiers on the island. And so, for me, this was a way of trying to tell another history, a lost or a forgotten or a little-known history about these black soldiers who played an important part in American history.” Trethewey said. Coincidentally, she was born “exactly 100 years to the day that Mississippi celebrated the first Confederate Memorial Day, April 26, 1866.

Canada is lacking two things. It's true. Don't make me say it again. The first is Olympic Heroes [...] The second thing that Canada is lacking is Memorial Day, which is today by the way, where we in the States celebrate our war heroes by having barbeques . And I realize here in Canada you can't have barbeques because you'd probably be attacked by a moose, or caribou, or even a grizzly.

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.

I say to our enemies: We are coming. God may have mercy on you, but we won't

We send cruise missiles and then we think everything's all right or we try to bring them to trial. My friends, this time they've gone too far. This time we're serious. This time we won't quit until they are gone, completely gone from the face of the earth

While tributes to Americans who had lost their lives in battle had been held in a number of towns across the nation, one of the more well-known stories about the beginnings of Memorial Day is the story about General John Logan.

We should not take a Memorial Day recess until we pass a proper memorial for the slain students in Littleton, Colorado, and other school gun tragedies.

Life hangs as nothing in the scale against dear Liberty!

From Memorial Day to Labor Day, you may wear white shoes. Not before and not after. As a command, the White Shoe Edict should be clear and simple enough. Do not violate it. In a society in which everything else has become relative, a matter of how it makes you feel, a question between you and your conscience, and an opportunity for you to be really you, this is an absolute.

Those who will may raise monuments of marble to perpetuate the fame of heroes. Those who will may build memorial halls to remind those who shall gather there in after times what manhood could do and dare for right, and what high examples of virtue and valor have gone before them. But let us make our offering to the ever-living soul. Let us build our benefactions in the ever-growing heart, that they shall live and rise and spread in blessing beyond our sight, beyond the ken of man and beyond the touch of time.

Heroism is latent in every human soul - However humble or unknown, they (the veterans) have renounced what are accounted pleasures and cheerfully undertaken all the self-denials - privations, toils, dangers, sufferings, sicknesses, mutilations, life-long hurts and losses, death itself - for some great good, dimly seen but dearly held.

I dedicate my love and whole heart this Memorial Day to my Dad, a soldier, who like many others, suffers in silence with pride and honor.

Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land, God Bless the U.S.A.

I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free.

And I'm proud to be an American, Where at least I know I'm free, And I won't forget the men who died, Who gave that right to me And I'll proudly stand up next to him to defend her still today, Cuz there aint no doubt I love this land, God bless the USA

Caged birds accept each other, but flight is what they long for.

Matt looked up kids from his high school class. Only three were listed as dead, but a bunch were listed as missing/presumed dead. As a test, he looked us up, but none of our names were on any of the lists. And that's how we know we're alive this Memorial Day.

I am the living death, a Memorial Day on wheels. I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy, your John Wayne come home, your Fourth of July firecracker exploding in the grave.

Memorial Day, the reason for it, fewer and fewer people know. It's just the first real weekend of summer, three-day weekend and so forth, barbecues, what have you. That's why I think education is important. I'm really glad my dad drilled into me these things that he had lived through and it helped me relate to him better and understand the things he thought were important and why he was raising me the way he was.

Alas, how can we help but mourn When hero bosoms yield their breath! A century itself may bear But once the flower of such a death.

So as you go into battle, remember your ancestors and remember your descendants.

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.

With the tears a Land hath shed. Their graves should ever be green.

Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays.... The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach blossoms.

Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth; Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth...

When we ponder that vast throng who have died honorably defending home and hearth, we contemplate those immortal words, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' The feelings of heartfelt gratitude for the supreme sacrifice made by so many cannot be confined to a Memorial Day, a military parade, or a decorated grave.

There are no points of the compass on the chart of true patriotism.

It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.

I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the living; tears for the dead.

I see in the FBI 302, which was put out on Memorial Day weekend in print about this big where you needed to use a magnifying glass to read it, but I read it twice, I saw something that really concerned me.It said Hillary Clinton can't remember her exit interview from the CIA because she had no memory for a period of time after she had a concussion. She was secretary of state when she had no memory. Now there's something really seriously wrong with it.

Ah! never shall the land forget How gushed the life-blood of her brave -

Ah! never shall the land forget.

Cover them over with beautiful flowers, Deck them with garlands, those brothers of ours, Lying so silent by night and by day Sleeping the years of their manhood away. Give them the meed they have won in the past; Give them the honors their future forcast; Give them the chaplets they won in the strife; Give them the laurels they lost with their life.

Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o'er, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Dream of battled fields no more. Days of danger, nights of waking.

Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o'er.

They do not need our praise. They do not need that our admiration should sustain them. There is no immortality that is safer than theirs. We come not for their sakes but for our own, in order that we may drink at the same springs of inspiration from which they themselves drank.

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.

Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.

The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.

We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers.

Freedom cannot be bestowed - it must be achieved.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall with our English dead.

Then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

So long as there are men, there will be wars.

We must be prepared to make the same heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger.

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.

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.

One should never allow chaos to develop in order to avoid going to war, because one does not avoid a war but instead puts it off to his disadvantage

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.

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

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

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

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?

They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.

We shall pay any price, bear any burden, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.

This Memorial Day should remind us of the greatness that past generations of Americans achieved from Valley Forge to Vietnam, and it should inspire us with the determination to keep America great and free by keeping America safe and strong in our own time, a time of unique destiny and opportunity for our Nation.

Peace is the real and right memorial for those who have died in war.

Our goal is peace. We can gain that peace by strengthening our alliances, by speaking candidly about the dangers before us, by assuring potential adversaries of our seriousness, by actively pursuing every chance of honest and fruitful negotiation.

Today, the United States stands as a beacon of liberty and democratic strength before the community of nations. We are resolved to stand firm against those who would destroy the freedoms we cherish. We are determined to achieve an enduring peace - a peace with liberty and with honor. This determination, this resolve, is the highest tribute we can pay to the many who have fallen in the service of our Nation.

Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books.

Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.

I can't claim to know the words of all the national anthems in the world, but I don't know of any other that ends with a question and a challenge as ours does: Does that flag still wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? That is what we must all ask.

I don't have to tell you how fragile this precious gift of freedom is. Every time we hear, watch, or read the news, we are reminded that liberty is a rare commodity in this world.

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

In our observances this Memorial Day, we honor the brave Americans who paid the highest price for their commitment to the ideals of peace, freedom, and justice. Our debt to them can be paid only by our own recommitment to preserving those same ideals.

We owe this freedom of choice and action to those men and women in uniform who have served this nation and its interests in time of need. In particular, we are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we might be free.

Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them.

The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper. Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden. And just as they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice, so too must we - in a less final, less heroic way - be willing to give of ourselves.

All we have of freedom All we use or know This our fathers bought for us Long and long ago