Serve Nation Quotes & Sayings

There is no way to change what Iraq has done to me. The scars are permanent, and I've grown tired of hiding them. It's time for the nation to start thinking about what it really means to support those who serve. It's time to consider the full effects of this war on the nation's sons and daughters. The experience doesn't end once you're home. In many ways, it's just beginning. While the rest of the nation sleeps soundly tonight, I'll go back to my nightmare in Iraq. Eric — Eric Fair

No one is going to question my commitment to the defence of our nation. I don't know what it is these Republicans, who didn't serve in any war, have against those of us who are Democrats who did. — John F. Kerry

As 17th U.S. Surgeon General, I was privileged to serve as the nation's doctor. I focused much of my time on promoting proven programs and individual steps that lead to good health. — Richard Carmona

Across the Jewish community, the MLK Shabbat Suppers are part of Repair the World's multi-year effort to mobilize Jews across the nation to serve as tutors, mentors, and college access coaches for public school children. — Lynn Schusterman

What Republicans need to do is to go back to their roots - starting with Lincoln - and remind the nation that they are the party of national growth, racial equality and unity of purpose. These Lincolnian themes will serve Republicans - and the nation - much better than becoming the party on the lookout for the supposed rat head of higher taxes. — Alan Siegel

Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. — George Washington

Lo! we are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts; we cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of education, since we must always cook and serve? And the Nation echoed and enforced this self-criticism, saying: Be content to be servants, and nothing more; what need of higher culture for half-men? — W.E.B. Du Bois

This is where people misunderstand war. When you attack another country for its resources, you are the pirate. But when you protect your country from the pirates, you are the hero. — Suzy Kassem

It is time to acknowledge the extraordinary sacrifice of all of our veterans. While many Massachusetts soldiers served our nation in a period technically dubbed 'peacetime,' they restored American pride in the wake of Vietnam and helped bring a successful end to the Cold War. The service of these men and women was not without cost. There are countless stories of soldiers who served with great distinction only to be denied veteran status after returning home. Every man and woman who volunteered to serve this country should be treated with the same degree of respect, gratitude and dignity. — Mitt Romney

The Congressional Prayer Caucus has worked successfully to advocate for and protect values that are fundamental to the fabric of our nation, and I'm honored to serve as co-chairman. — James Lankford

We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve nowadays are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our nation's uniform. — George W. Bush

When all of our talk about politics is either technical or strategic, to say nothing of partisan and polarizing, we loosen or sever the human connections on which empathy, accountability, and democracy itself depend. If we cannot talk about politics in the language of the heart - if we cannot be publicly heartbroken, for example, that the wealthiest nation on earth is unable to summon the political will to end childhood hunger at home - how can we create a politics worthy of the human spirit, one that has a chance to serve the common good? — Parker J. Palmer

Word to the Nation: Guard zealously your right to serve in the Armed Forces, for without them, there will be no other rights to guard. — John F. Kennedy

Can one serve God and one's nation in parliament? — William Wilberforce

I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person, and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough. — Condoleezza Rice

Democrats see our voluntary military supported by taxpayer dollars as their personal Salvation Army. Self-interested behavior, such as deploying troops to serve the nation, is considered boorish in Manhattan salons. — Ann Coulter

The men and women who serve this great nation, whether they are stationed in Iraq, Fort Riley, or the Korean Peninsula, or they serve us at home as our community first responders, serve because they believe in America. — Kathleen Sebelius

In the months ahead, I will leave the Department of Justice, but I will never
I will never
leave the work. I will continue to serve and try to find ways to make our nation even more true to its founding ideals. — Eric Holder

If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman ... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French. — Montesquieu

WHERE ARE THE FATHERS? I have seen this cry in countless men and women in the body of Christ. Most of them are young and with a strong call of God on their lives. They cry out for a father, a man to disciple, love, support, and encourage them. This is why God said He would "turn the hearts of the fathers [leaders] to the children [people], and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse" (Mal. 4:6). Our nation lost its fathers (dads, leaders, or ministers) in the 1940s and 1950s, and today our condition is getting worse. Not unlike Saul, many leaders in our homes, corporations, and churches are more concerned with their goals than with their offspring. Because of this attitude, these leaders view God's people as resources to serve their vision instead of seeing the vision as the vehicle to serve the people. — John Bevere

Emil wanted to serve his nation and make her great again. He wanted to be a good Nazi, he really did, but when he thought of Anne and the terrified expression on her face, he shook his head. He faked a limp all the way home. — Lee Strauss

Mr. Speaker, at a time when the nation is again confronted with necessity for calling its young men into service in the interestsof National Security, I cannot see the wisdom of denying our young women the opportunity to serve their country. — Lyndon B. Johnson

In times of crisis our nation depends on the courage and determination of the Guard. You know the call of active duty can come at any time. You stand ready to put your lives on hold and answer that call, ... And you did so because you love your state and your country. America appreciates your courageous decision to serve. Together with your comrades in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Reserves, you are showing that patriotism is alive and well in Idaho and throughout the United States.. — George H. W. Bush

Those of us with powers are sought out by the Checquy through a variety of means, and the group was long ago granted the authority to claim any citizens it wanted. Parents are coerced or duped into releasing their children, sometimes with massive payoffs. Adults are lured in with promises of power, wealth, and the opportunity to serve their nation. The initiation is a mixture of ancient oaths and modern contracts under both the official and unofficial secrecy acts of the government. By the time an individual has become a full member, he is bound by a million different ties. Do you realize now what your leaving would have meant? — Daniel O'Malley

Executive power in any nation arguably has more in common with executive power in another country than with the citizens it should serve. — Nick Harkaway

The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., our nation's capitol, it is estimated that three out of four young black men (and nearly all those in the poorest neighborhoods) can expect to serve time in prison. — Michelle Alexander

A country will have authority and influence because of moral factors, not its military strength; because it can be humble and not blatant and arrogant; because our people want to serve others and not dominate others. And a nation without morality will soon lose its influence around the world. — Jimmy Carter

I make no pretensions to 'objectivity,' a fraudulent concept in an era of industrialized and politicized science in which intellectual mercenaries too often serve power and greed, the ambitions of competing nation-states, or the requirements of commerce. — Hazel Henderson

We owe our troops the opportunity to serve in the best-planned, best-equipped, and best-led military force in the world, and we owe them the peace of mind that comes from knowing that they and their families will be taken care of if they sacrifice life, limb or the ability to sleep without war's nightmares. We owe them not just thanks and best wishes, but action, and action in our nation's capital. — John F. Kerry

Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity. From the collectivist standpoint intolerance and brutal suppression of dissent, the complete disregard of the life and happiness of the individual, are essential and unavoidable consequences of this basic premise, and the collectivist can admit this and at the same time claim that his system is superior to one in which the "selfish" interests of the individual are allowed to obstruct the full realisation of the ends the community pursues. — Friedrich Hayek

A man needs a friend to share goals with, a woman to share his heart with, and a nation to serve with all of his heart. That's the best life one can live. — Yi Sun-sin

This army is powerful because all its members have a conscious discipline; they have come together and they fight not for the private interests of a few individuals or a narrow clique, but for the interests of the broad masses and of the whole nation. The sole purpose of this army is to stand firmly with the Chinese people and to serve them whole-heartedly. — Mao Zedong

It is the US government's desire for the Iraqi people to lead themselves, not for any outside power to be the leadership for Iraq in the future. There may be some transition period where the international community would have to help the Iraqi people put in place a representative government. But that is the goal, not for the United States, or any other nation, for that matter, who might be in such a coalition, if one is formed, to serve as the leader of the Iraqi nation. — Colin Powell

I am honored to have served as our great nation's first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I will continue to serve as Ambassador Emeritus. And I will make good on my Ambassadorial promise to my wife to stop playing the 'Fanfare' every time I walk into or out of a room. — Jon Scieszka

Patriotism means unqualified and unwavering love for the nation, which implies not uncritical eagerness to serve, not support for unjust claims, but frank assessment of its vices and sins, and penitence for them. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I think standing and fighting and working alongside all of these people that raise their right hand and serve their nation ... really wipes away the distractions of some of the petty things we think are important at home. — Pete Hegseth

Yet every democratic government is reluctant to face the fact. Reservists and citizen-soldiers stand ready, in every free nation, to stand to the colors and die in holocaust, the big war. Reservists and citizen-soldiers remain utterly reluctant to stand and die in anything less. None want to serve on the far frontiers, or to maintain lonely, dangerous vigils on the periphery of Asia. There has been every indication that mass call-ups for cold war moves may result in mass disaffection. — T.R. Fehrenbach

I have always gone through public life and saying that with respect to political candidates, I always measure each candidate against what I think the country needs at that time, and I will vote for the person I think who is most qualified to serve the nation at that time. — Colin Powell

You must not wait to be elected into office, before you begin to serve. Begin to serve every where you are; in the home, community, school, university, work, hospital, church, market, society, nation and among many other places. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Great are the promises concerning this land of America. We are told unequivocally that it "is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ" (Ether 2:12). This is the crux of the entire matter - obedience to the commandments of God. — Gordon B. Hinckley

The claim to a national culture in the past does not only rehabilitate that nation and serve as a justification for the hope of a future national culture. In the sphere of psycho-affective equilibrium it is responsible for an important change in the native. Perhaps we haven't sufficiently demonstrated that colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native's brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it. This work of devaluing pre-colonial history takes on a dialectical significance today. — Frantz Fanon

I insist you to strive. Work, Work and only work for satisfaction with patience, humbleness and serve thy nation. — Muhammad Ali Jinnah

It was against this backdrop that the great fortunes were made, fortunes which allowed the first families to dominate the society of that era. Theodore Parker, a crusading minister in the 1840s, wrote of the Lowells and these other great families: "This class is the controlling one in politics. It mainly enacts the laws of this state and the nation; makes them serve its turn ... It can manufacture governors, senators, judges to suit its purposes as easily as it can manufacture cotton cloth. This class owns the machinery of society ... ships, factories, shops, water privileges." They were also families which had a fine sense of protecting their own position, and they were notorious for giving large grants to Harvard College, which was their college, and just as notorious for doing very little for public education. — David Halberstam

I'm not an ambitious person, there is no ambition in my life. I have a mission in my life. And my mission is to serve my country. And when I am working for my state, it means I am working for my country, or my nation. — Narendra Modi

To cover the fact that a central bank is merely a cartel which has been legalized, its proponents had to lay down a thick smoke screen of technical jargon focusing always on how it would supposedly benefit commerce, the public, and the nation ... there was not the slightest glimmer that underneath it all, was a master plan which was designed from top to bottom to serve private interests at the expense of the public ... the system is merely a cartel with a government facade. — G. Edward Griffin

I want to thank the efforts of the American Public Health Association and its 200-plus partners who have organized events around the Nation that serve to raise everyone's awareness of the need to improve public health. — Lois Capps

As the nation watches, Democrats and Republicans should reflect the interspersed character of America itself. Perhaps, by sitting with each other for one night, we will begin to rekindle that common spark that brought us here from 50 different states and widely diverging backgrounds to serve the public good. — Mark Udall

In times of uncertainty there is a special breed of warrior ready to answer our Nation's call; a common man with uncommon desire to succeed. Forged by adversity, he stands alongside America's finest special operations forces to serve his country and the American people, and to protect their way of life. I am that man. — Marcus Luttrell

We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grateful to our Commander-in-Chief and to our nation for this day. God bless America. — Jeremiah Denton

You were satisfied to serve the power of your nation and we dreamed of giving ours her truth. It was enough for you to serve the politics of reality whereas, in our wildest aberrations, we still had a vague conception of the politics of honor. — Albert Camus

The advertising man is a liaison between the products of business and the mind of the nation. He must know both before he can serve either. — Glenn Frank

The majority of men cannot be made disinterested for life by exhortation, by religious services, by any expenditure of subsidized works, or even by grave and manifest public need. They can be made permanently unselfish only by being helped to become disinterested in their individual purposes. In the complete democracy a man must in some way be made to serve the nation in the very act of contributing to his own individual fulfillment. Not until his personal action is dictated by disinterested motives can there be any such harmony between private and public interests. — Herbert Croly

On June 20, 1951, less than four weeks after the Homer case broke, Hoover escalated the FBI's Sex Deviates Program. The FBI alerted universities and state and local police to the subversive threat, seeking to drive homosexuals from every institution of government, higher learning, and law enforcement in the nation. The FBI's files on American homosexuals grew to 300,000 pages over the next twenty-five years before they were destroyed. It took six decades, until 2011, before homosexuals could openly serve in the United States military. — Tim Weiner

When the brave men and women who serve our nation in uniform leave to deploy overseas, they dont just leave behind their family and friends, often times they leave behind jobs and livelihoods as well. After the sacrifices they have made, making sure that they have access to a good paying job to support their families when they return is the least we can do, — Tim Walz

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests. — George Washington

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it. — Stephen Colbert

The stranger in ancient Israel did not serve as a judge, although he received all the benefits of living in the land. The political question is this: By what biblical standard is the pagan to be granted the right to bring political sanctions against God's people? We recognize that unbelievers are not to vote in Church elections. Why should they be allowed to vote in civil elections in a covenanted Christian nation? Which judicial standards will they impose? By what other standard than the Bible? — Gary North

Why do we use the term "greatest generation" for participants in war? Why not for those who have opposed war, who have tried to make us understand that war has never solved fundamental problems?

Should we not honor, instead of parachutists and bomber pilots, those conscientious objectors who refused to fight or the radicals and pacifists who opposed the idea that young people of one nation should kill young people of another nation to serve the purposes of politicians and financiers? — Howard Zinn

The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle. — Nelson Mandela

As human beings, are we meant to develop as individuals serving only our own needs or also serving the needs of others? Do we aspire to develop as critically thinking, creative,innovative, humane people, or do we just want to think of ourselves as members of a specific nation and culture? Freedom allows choice and liberal education advocates for a specific choice: that the purpose of freedom is to enable creative, critically thinking,caring individuals to build healthy societies that serve universal (not just parochial) ends. — Gregory S. Prince Jr.

The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation. — George Washington

Another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard - every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals, which they serve. — Erich Fromm

But what is now encompassed by the one word ("school") are two very different kinds of institutions that, in function, finance and intention, serve entirely different roles. Both are needed for our nation's governance. But children in one set of schools are educated to be governors; children in the other set of schools are trained for being governed. The former are given the imaginative range to mobilize ideas for economic growth; the latter are provided with the discipline to do the narrow tasks the first group will prescribe. — Jonathan Kozol

On Veterans Day, we take time to honor those men and women who bravely serve and have served our nation in the U.S. Armed Forces. — Todd Tiahrt

My father will always be my hero. He pioneered two successful companies that paved the way for the technology services industry and has devoted much of his life to helping people in need and those who serve our nation in the armed forces. — Ross Perot Jr.

With respect to where we are now, we have a voluntary army. And if we ever go back to conscription I hope that at time it will be the kind of conscription that was put in at the end of the Vietnam War. And that is, everybody is equally liable to be called to serve the nation in time of conflict. — Colin Powell

The two great political parties of the nation have existed for the purpose, each in accordance with its own principles, of undertaking to serve the interests of the whole nation. Their members of the Congress are chosen with that great end in view. — Calvin Coolidge

May we continue to serve one another in love. — Lailah Gifty Akita

She had stepped into the thin strip of earth that they claimed as their own. Bound by the last building on Brewster and a brick wall, they reigned in that unlit alley like dwarfed warrior kings. Born with the appendages of power, circumcised by the guillotine, and baptized with the steam from a million non reflective mirrors, these young men wouldn't be called upon to thrust a bayonet into an Asian farmer, target a torpedo, scatter their iron seed from a B-52 into the wound of the earth, point a finger to move a nation, or stick a pole into the moon
and they knew it. They only had that three-hundred-foot alley to serve them as stateroom, armored tank, and executioner's chamber. — Gloria Naylor

Let ... individuals make the most of what God has given them, have their neighbors do the same, and then do all they can to serve each other. There is no use in one man, or one nation, to try to do or be everything. It is a good thing to be dependent on each other for something, it makes us civil and peaceable. — Sojourner Truth

Let us together serve the Nation. If each citizen takes one step forward, the country takes 125 crore steps forward. — Narendra Modi

Emotions, or feelings, have a function. They tell us something. They are a signal....Anger tells us that our boundaries have been violated. Much like a nation's radar defense system, angry feelings serve as an "early warning system" telling us we're in danger of being injured or controlled. — John Townsend

Praise and worship go way beyond the songs we're familiar with, songs we dislike or songs we disapprove. It's all about any type of songs that touch God's heart because He's the creator of nations and tribes and His desire is for every nation and every tribe to praise and worship Him in spirit and in truth. That's the God we serve. — Euginia Herlihy

Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise! — Theodore Roosevelt

Racial profiling punishes innocent individuals for the past actions of those who look and sound like them. It misdirects crucial resources and undercuts the trust needed between law enforcement and the communities they serve. It has no place in our national discourse, and no place in our nation's police departments. — Benjamin Todd Jealous

The people of a nation are enslaved when, together, they are helpless to institute effective change, when the people serve the government more than the government serves them. — Gerry Spence

Take for instance, a society where the prevailing value system is that you only go into politics and leadership to serve and not to make money. In such a nation, people know that those who go into politics and leadership come out of it poorer than they went in. — Sunday Adelaja

If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream. — Edward Abbey

And I also serve on a caucus that addresses financial literacy for young people in this country. And it is so hypocritical that we want to talk to these kids about how to better manage their money when we are not doing a good job with our Nation's resources. — Melissa Bean

The basic social contract is that citizens agree to follow the law, pay their taxes, and devote their love and loyalty to their country, and in exchange, the nation commits to preserve and protect and serve their interests, safeguard their freedom, and return to them in kind their first allegiance and loyalty. — Jeff Sessions

Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests. The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it. — Sarah Palin

We all would like to see a brighter future for Haiti, and I hope this conference will serve to explore many views. Respect for human rights, freedom, and the rule of law must be established in the poorest nation in our hemisphere. — Eliot Engel

I never had the chance to decide; I was drafted to serve my nation. While I received a deferment to attend school, I ultimately served in the United States Army in the years following the Korean conflict. — Don Young

It was only natural that the intellectuals who questioned the necessity of American purpose did not rush from Cambridge and New Haven to inflict their doubts about American power and goals upon the nation's policies. So people like Riesman, classic intellectuals, stayed where they were while the new breed of thinkers-doers, half of academe, half of the nation's think tanks and of policy planning, would make the trip, not doubting for a moment the validity of their right to serve, the quality of their experience. They were men who reflected the post-Munich, post-McCarthy pragmatism of the age. One had to stop totalitarianism, and since the only thing the totalitarians understood was force, one had to be willing to use force. They justified each decision to use power by their own conviction that the Communists were worse, which justified our dirty tricks, our toughness. — David Halberstam

Those who cannot conquer must bend the knee. They must find strength, or serve those of us who have. You are my generals. I will send you out: my hunting dogs, my wolves with iron teeth. When a city closes its gates in fear, you will destroy it. When they make roads and walls, you will cut them, pull down the stones. When a man raises a sword or bow against your men, you will hang him from a tree. Keep Karakorum in your minds as you go. This white city is the heart of the nation, but you are the right arm, the burning brand. Find me new lands, gentlemen. Cut a new path. Let their women weep a sea of tears and I will drink it all. — Conn Iggulden

Let us disperse from our aloofness and serve the weak who made us strong, and cleanse the country in which we live. Let us teach this miserable nation to smile and rejoice with heaven's bounty and glory of life and freedom. — Kahlil Gibran

USA TODAY hopes to serve as a forum for better understanding and unity to help make the USA truly one nation. — Al Neuharth

Those who served, and those who continue to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard took an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and we can never forget the importance of their commitment to our Nation. — Robin Hayes

Childhood does not exist to serve the national economy. In a healthy nation, it should be the other way around. — Jonathan Kozol

Churchgoers all across the nation say the Holy Spirit has entered them. They claim that God has given them a supernatural ability to follow Christ, put their sin to death, and serve the church. Christians talk about being born again say that they they were dead but now have come to life. We have become hardened to those words, but they are powerful words that have significant meaning. Yet when those outside the church see no difference in our lives, they begin to question our integrity, out sanity, or even worse, our God. And can you blame them? — Francis Chan

All combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community. — George Washington

The late Rev. Peter Gomes at The Memorial Church at Harvard was a true mentor to me when I was in college. He instilled in me a commitment to service, saying that it's not enough to believe in service, or support those who serve-you ought to find a way yourself to serve. When I looked at different options after college, nobody inspired me more than the 18- and 19-year-olds who serve on the front lines of our nation's military. Serving with them in the Marines as we together served our country was the greatest honor of my life to date. — Seth Moulton

The brave men and women who have served - and those who continue to serve - our armed forces have selflessly sacrificed for our nation, and we owe it to them to provide the best services and protections available when they're overseas and after they return home. — Kirsten Gillibrand