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

 —John Fitzgerald Kennedy

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

 —G.K. Chesterton

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

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

 —Arthur Koestler

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

There’s a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn’t a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.

—Barbara Kingsolver

When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep?

 —George Canning

The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war. 

—Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

— Benjamin Franklin

In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.

 —José N arosky

In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.

—Croesus

But fame is theirs — and future days / On pillar’d brass shall tell their praise; / Shall tell — when cold neglect is dead — / “These for their country fought and bled.

—Philip Freneau

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

 —Michel de Montaigne