Top 67 Memorial Day Quotes of All Time

A short, finished list rather than an endless feed: 67 of the best memorial day quotes ever written, picked out of the full memorial day archive on QuoteForever. You will find Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, Walt Whitman and Walter Scott among them.

Read the list top to bottom, or use it as a starting point - every author name links to everything else they said, and every quote has its own page you can share or turn into an image.

1

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

2

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.

3

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.

4

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.

5

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

6

In war there is no substitute for victory.

7

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

8

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.

9

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

10

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.

11

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

12

The heroes of Flight 93 won the first battle in the War on Terror, and they should never be forgotten.

13

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.

14

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.

15

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

16

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.

17

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

18

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

19

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.

20

Real heroes are men who fall and fail and are flawed, but win out in the end because they've stayed true to their ideals and beliefs and commitments.

21

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.

22

Life hangs as nothing in the scale against dear Liberty!

23

The modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

24

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.

25

Because Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama failed to provide a status of forces agreement and leave sufficient troops in there, we are back at war. The president just ordered more troops on the ground. We are back at war in Iraq. And Scott Zubowski, whose mom would always come to Memorial Day events in Newcastle, Indiana, to see me, and I'd give her a hug and tell her we're never going to forget her son and we never will, Scott Zubowski and the sacrifices the American soldier made were squandered in Iraq because this administration created a vacuum in which ISIS was able to grow.

26

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

27

There is nothing nobler than risking your life for your country.

28

Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody.

29

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.

30

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.

31

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

32

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

33

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

34

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.

35

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.

36

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.

37

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.

38

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.

39

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

40

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.

41

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.

42

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.

43

These martyrs of patriotism gave their lives for an idea.

44

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.

45

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

46

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

47

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

48

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.

49

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

50

Who kept the faith and fought the fight; The glory theirs, the duty ours.

51

The real war will never get in the books.

52

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.

53

Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o'er.

54

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.

55

Over all our happy country - over all our Nation spread, Is a band of noble heroes - is our Army of the Dead.

56

Cover them over with beautiful flowers, Deck them with garlands, those brothers of ours, Lying so silent by night and by day.

57

Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.

58

Ah! never shall the land forget.

59

Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!

60

When this war is over, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell!

61

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

62

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

63

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.

64

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

65

We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.

66

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.

67

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

More Memorial Day quotes

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