The Best Memorial Day Quotes & Sayings

08/14/1025h. Dessert Competitions.
08/14/1315h. Illinois State Fair Infirmary; then motel; then Springfield Memorial Medical Center Emergency Room for distention and possible rupture of transverse colon (false alarm); then motel; incapacitated till well after sunset; whole day a washout; incredibly embarrassing, unprofessional; indescribable. Delete entire day. — David Foster Wallace

Ceremonies are important. But our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops, and once-a-year Memorial Day ceremonies. We honor the dead best by treating the living well. — Jennifer Granholm

My name is Natasha Trethewey, and I was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1966, exactly 100 years to the day that Mississippi celebrated the first Confederate Memorial Day, April 26, 1866. — Natasha Trethewey

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. — Michael N. Castle

Legend has it that Walter was taking a walk with his father one day and passed by a church where Oswald directed his young son's attention to a memorial. "There's a name you will never remember," Oswald commented as he kept walking. Walter paused to read: — Patricia Cornwell

Today, the men from that meeting are frozen in photographs.
They are immortal, or rather: they must never be forgotten.
The villa has become a place of memorial.
I visited it one gloriously sunny day in July 2004.
You can walk through the horror.
The long table used for the meeting is frightening.
As if the objects had taken part in the crime.
The place with forever be charged with terror.
So this is what it means, when a chill runs down your spine.
I had never understood that expression before.
The physical manifestation of an invisible icy finger.
Tracing the vertebrae in your back. — David Foenkinos

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

There's intense national feeling in America that could be called patriotism. — Michael Ignatieff

I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the
living; tears for the dead. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Gray stood up and came round the desk. "Think of the words on that memorial, Wraysford. Think of those stinking towns and foul bloody villages whose names will be turned into some bogus glory by fat-arsed historians who have sat in London. We were there. As our punishment for God knows what, we were there, and our men died in each of those disgusting places. I hate their names. I hate the sound of them and the thought of them, which is why I will not bring myself to remind you. But listen." He put his face close to Stephen's. "There are four words they will chisel beneath them at the bottom. Four words that people will look at one day. When they read the other words they will want to vomit. When they read these, they will bow their heads, just a little. 'Final advance and pursuit.' Don't tell me you don't want to put your name to those words. — Sebastian Faulks

Holocaust Memorial Day is intended as an inclusive commemoration of all the individuals and communities who suffered as a result of the Holocaust - not only Jews, but also Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, political prisoners and dozens of ethnic and other minorities. — Jack Straw

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. — Harry S. Truman

Their own souls rose and cried
Alarum when they heard the sudden wail
Of stricken freedom and along the gale
Saw her eternal banner quivering wide. — John Le Gay Brereton

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. — George W. Bush

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

So three days before the millennium, Bianca called. "D'ya wanna go to the White House with Trisha and me?" By Trisha, she meant country singer Trisha Yearwood, whose record label, MCA, she'd recently been hired to work at. "When would that be, exactly?" I asked. "For that Millennium Concert at the Lincoln Memorial. There's a party at the White House after and all." She always talked like she was chewing gum between words. "They're flying us there in a private jet. Ya don't need to write about it. Just come as Trisha's guest. It'll be fun." "Shit, I'm supposed to go ice-skating with some guys who think the world's going to end. Give me a day to figure things out and I'll get right back to you. — Neil Strauss

Happy Memorial Day! Thank you to all our service men and women past and present. You are not forgotten! — Courteney Cox

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

Their silent wounds have speech
More eloquent than men;
Their tones can deeper reach
Than human voice or pen. — William Robert Woodman

If the baser instinct of rampant self-preservation adamantly refuses to surrender itself to the infinitely greater call of self-sacrifice, in attempting to save our lives we will have in reality completely destroyed our lives. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

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

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies. — Moina Michael

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

They, and we, are the legacies of an unbroken chain of proud men and women who served their country with honor, who waged war so that we might know peace, who braved hardship so that we might know opportunity, who paid the ultimate price so that we might know freedom. — Barack Obama

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. — Ronald Reagan

I have long believed that sacrifice is the pinnacle of patriotism. — Bob Riley

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 — Tom DeLay

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. — John Conyers

It is important that we remember.
It is vital we do more than just remember. — Richelle E. Goodrich

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. — Ronald Reagan

This was the first Memorial Day [Monday, May 1st, 1865]. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is Black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the war had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution. — David W. Blight

What I can do for my country, I am willing to do. — Christopher Gadsden

These martyrs of patriotism gave their lives for an idea. — Schuyler Colfax

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