Remembrance Day Quotes:

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

- John F. Kennedy

topic: Inspirational, Thank You, Thanksgiving, I Am Thankful, Inspirational Gratitude

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place, and in the sky, The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard among the guns below.

- John McCrae

source: "In Flanders Fields" l. 1 (1915)

topic: Blow, Gun, Sky, Memorial Day Poems, Scarce

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

- Cynthia Ozick

source: Jamake Highwater (1997). “The Mythology of Transgression: Homosexuality as Metaphor”, Oxford University Press, USA

topic: Thank You, Thanksgiving, Thankful, Spiritual Gratitude, Inspirational Gratitude

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

- Joseph Campbell

topic: Inspiring, Courage, Veterans Day, Something Bigger Than Yourself, Inspirational Military

The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.

- Czeslaw Milosz

topic: Remembrance, Stories, Speak, Remembrance Day

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.

- Laurence Binyon

source: "For the Fallen" l. 13 (1914)

topic: Morning, Years, Age, Lest We Forget, Veterans Day Poems

Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear

- William Shakespeare

topic: Memories, Memorable, Loss, Remembrance Day

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.

- John McCrae

source: John McCrae (2015). “In Flanders Fields and Other Poems”, p.20, Dundurn

topic: Lying, Sunset, Dawn, 11th Hour, World War 1

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.

- Elmer Davis

topic: Veterans Day, Courage, Memories, India Independence Day, Independence Day

Although no words can really help to ease the loss you bear, Just know that you are very close in every thought and prayer. To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.

- Thomas Campbell

topic: Prayer, Condolences, Heart, Inspirational Bereavement, Inspirational Condolences

Four things support the world: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valor of the brave

- Elijah Muhammad

topic: Wise, Memorial Day, Prayer, Remembrance Day, Great Memorial Day

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

- Benjamin Disraeli

topic: Memories, Hero, Names, Memorial Day Heroes, Memorial Day Messages

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

- Maya Angelou

topic: Veterans Day, Women, Hero, Fireman, Women Equality

I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask: "Mother, what was war?"

- Eve Merriam

topic: Mother, Dream, Peace, Acts Of Violence, War Veteran

And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier's tomb, and beauty weeps the brave.

- Joseph Rodman Drake

topic: Country, Memories, Light, Memorial Day Heroes, Memorial Day Poems

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

- Rudyard Kipling

topic: Uplifting, Memorial Day, Freedom, Independence Day Patriotic, July 4

Lord, bid war's trumpet cease; Fold the whole earth in peace.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

topic: Veterans Day, Peace, War, Military Veteran, Support Our Troops

Grief starts to become indulgent, and it doesn't serve anyone, and it's painful. But if you transform it into remembrance, then you're magnifying the person you lost and also giving something of that person to other people, so they can experience something of that person.

- Patti Smith

topic: Grief, People, Giving, Remembrance Day, Magnifying

One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.

- Antonio Porchia

source: "Voices". Book by Antonio Porchia, 1943.

topic: Love, Inspirational, Funny, Remembrance Day

It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.

- Rose Kennedy

source: Stanley Weintraub, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, John McDonald Burke, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward (1974). “Whistler”

topic: Time, Pain, Get Well, Time Heals All, Time Heals All Wounds

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

- Michel de Montaigne

topic: Memorial Day, Courage, Veterans Day, Memorial Day Thank You, War Veteran

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

- Laurence Binyon

source: "For the Fallen" l. 13 (1914)

topic: Years, Age, Weary, Lest We Forget, Veterans Day Poems

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

- Gilbert K. Chesterton

source: Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.69, Simon and Schuster

topic: Courage, Veterans Day, Strong, Strong Desire, Be Courageous

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.

- Mark Twain

topic: Thank You, Memorial Day, Courage, Independence Day Patriotic, Inspirational Patriotic

When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep?

- George Canning

source: George Canning (1826). “Poetical Works ...: Comprising the Whole of the Satires, Odes, Songs, and Other Poems”, p.26

topic: Thankful, Gratitude, Sleep, Thankful Heart, Veteran Appreciation

But the freedom that they fought for, and the country grand they wrought for, Is their monument to-day, and for aye.

- Thomas Dunn English

source: Thomas Dunn English (1885). “The Boy's Book of Battle-lyrics: A Collection of Verses Illustrating Some Notable Events in the History of the United States of America, from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Sectional War”

topic: Country, 4th Of July, Monument, Memorial Day Messages, Memorial Day Poems

Our cheer goes back to them, the valiant dead! Laurels and roses on their graves to-day, lilies and laurels over them we lay, and violets o'er each unforgotten head.

- Richard Hovey

source: Richard Hovey (1908). “Along the Trail”

topic: Memorial Day, Cheer, Rose, Memorial Day Messages, Memorial Day Poems

Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes.

- Napoleon Bonaparte

topic: Thank You, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Remembrance Day, Thank A Veteran

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.

- George William Curtis

source: George William Curtis (1894). “On the principles and character of American institutions, and the duties of American citizens, 1856-1891”

topic: Loyalty, Country, Memorial Day, Independence Day Patriotic, July 4

The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums.

- Arthur Koestler

topic: Military, War, Men, Soldiers At War, War Veteran

Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from falling hands we throw.

- John McCrae

topic: Fall, Hands, Quarrels, Memorial Day Poems, 11th Hour

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

- John Keats

source: Letter to John Taylor, 27 February 1818, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 238

topic: Inspirational, Reading Poetry, Remembrance, Singularity, Wording

Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it until the test comes.

- Carl Sandburg

topic: Tests, Valor, Remembrance Day, Thank A Veteran

In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.

- Douglas MacArthur

topic: Dream, War, Gun, Strange Dreams, Duty And Honor

We thought: we're poor, we have nothing, but when we started losing one after the other so each day became remembrance day, we started composing poems about God's great generosity and our former riches.

- Anna Akhmatova

topic: Generosity, Remembrance, Each Day, Remembrance Day