Memorial Day Remembrance Quotes

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

  Maya Angelou

  Strong Women, Veterans Day, Courage

  "Celebrating Our She-roes" by Jill S. Tietjen, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 10, 2014.

  83 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Uplifting, Memorial Day, Cheer

  Richard Hovey (1908). “Along the Trail”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Uplifting, Memorial Day, Names

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Illustrated)”, p.39, Delphi Classics

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life hangs as nothing in the scale against dear Liberty!

  Lucy Larcom

  Memorial Day, Remembrance, Liberty

  Lucy Larcom (1869). “Poems”, p.131

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  William C. Bryant

  Uplifting, Memorial Day, Blood

  William Cullen Bryant, “The Battle-Field”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Better than honor and glory, and History's iron pen, Was the thought of duty done and the love of his fellow-men.

  Richard Watson Gilder

  Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Men

  Richard Watson Gilder (1900). “Five Books of Song”

  49 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Will Carleton

  Beautiful, Uplifting, Memorial Day

  Will Carleton (1875). “Farm Legends”, p.87, Belford Bros.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Memorial Day, American Veterans, Clouds

  9 Copy quote

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

  Bergen Evans

  Memorial Day, Freedom, Fear

  "The Natural History of Nonsense". Book by Bergen Evans, 1946.

  48 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Flag still floats unblotted with defeat! But ah the blood that keeps its ripples red, The starry lives that keep its field alight.

  Rupert Hughes

  Uplifting, Memorial Day, Blood

  7 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Memorial Day, Land, Remembrance

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1907). “The Writings of Thomas Bailey Aldrich: Ponkapog papers, A sea turn, and other papers”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Francis Marion Crawford

  Memorial Day, Loss, Causes

  21 Copy quote

• 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.

  Arthur Ashe

  Memorial Day, Courage, Hero

  "Worth Repeating: More Than 5,000 Classic and Contemporary Quotes" by Bob Kelly, p. 169, 2003.

  112 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Joseph Campbell

  Life, Inspiring, Veterans Day

  Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.151, Anchor

  172 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Benjamin Harrison

  Uplifting, Memorial Day, Military

  Benjamin Harrison (1893). “Public Papers and Addresses of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United States. March 4, 1889, to March 4, 1893”

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Pete Hegseth

  Thank You, Country, Memorial Day

  13 Copy quote

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

  Martin Luther

  Memorial Day, Peace, Ubuntu

  "On Marriage". Book by Martin Luther, 1530.

  70 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Marcus Garvey

  Memorial Day, People, Suffering

  Marcus Garvey (2015). “Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey”, p.6, Ravenio Books

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Marcus Garvey

  Memorial Day, Mean, Self

  Marcus Garvey (2015). “Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey”, p.6, Ravenio Books

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  John F. Kennedy

  Inspirational, Memorial Day, Freedom

  Inaugural Address, 20 Jan. 1961

  193 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Beautiful, Uplifting, Memorial Day

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1903). “Ponkapog Papers”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  John A. Logan

  Uplifting, Memorial Day, People

  "Memorial Day Order" by John A. Logan, www.cem.va.gov. May 5, 1868.

  124 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Military

  8 Copy quote

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

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Memorial Day

  John Brown ch. 13 (1909)

  117 Copy quote

  Show source

• The brave die never, though they sleep in dust: Their courage nerves a thousand living men.

  Minot Judson Savage

  Uplifting, Death, Memorial Day

  Minot Judson Savage (1884). “Poems of modern thought”

  91 Copy quote

  Show source