60 Memorial Day Quotes to Share in Honor and Remembrance
Updated: May 24, 2024
Honor the sacrifice of our heroic fallen with these Memorial Day quotes
Honoring veterans with Memorial Day quotes
While Memorial Day tends to herald the beginning of the summer season with barbecues, beaches and the first sunburn of the season, the “holiday” is truly a day for mourning and honoring the military members who have fought and died for our freedom. Memorial Day 2024 falls on Monday, May 27, and in order to prepare, you may be thinking about how to pay tribute to those who have sacrificed. Well, one way to honor the day is with Memorial Day quotes!
There are plenty of Memorial Day activities to participate in, Memorial Day movies to watch and patriotic quotes to read, but the following list of Memorial Day quotes will help you honor the fallen soldiers (and express gratitude) in the way they deserve.
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Memorial Day quotes about heroism
1. “A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.” —Bob Dylan
2. “How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” —Maya Angelou
3. “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
4. “We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage.” —Theodore Roosevelt
5. “Our nation owes a debt to its fallen heroes that we can never fully repay.” —Barack Obama
6. “I have long believed that sacrifice is the pinnacle of patriotism.” —Bob Riley
7. “Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt
8. “Heroism doesn’t always happen in a burst of glory. Sometimes small triumphs and large hearts change the course of history.” —Mary Roach
9. “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” —Joseph Campbell
10. “Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.” —Napoleon Hill
11. “The willingness of America’s veterans to sacrifice for our country has earned them our lasting gratitude.” —Jeff Miller
12. “As we set today aside to honor and thank our veterans, let us be mindful that we should do this every day of the year and not just one.” —Beth Pennington
13. “Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion.” —Calvin Coolidge
14. “If words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and to final sacrifice.” —Ronald Reagan
15. “It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.”- Norman Schwarzkopf
Do these Memorial Day quotes inspire you? Keep the inspiration going by learning more about the history and significance of the Memorial Day poppy.
Memorial Day quotes about remembrance
16. “Think about the past and consider the sacrifices men and women in the military have made for us.” —Gary G. Wetzel
17. “Your memory feels like home to me. So whenever my mind wanders, it always finds its way back to you.” —Ranata Suzuki
18. “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” —Thomas Campbell
19. “The wind is us—it gathers and remembers all our voices, then send them talking and telling through the leaves and the fields.” ―Truman Capote
20. “One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.”―Antonio Porchia
21. “The legacy of heroes—the memory of a great name, and the inheritance of a great example.” —Benjamin Disraeli
22. “Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed by the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
23. “Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.” —Emily Dickinson
24. “So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.” —Helen Keller
25. “Americans may not only pay tribute to our honored dead but also unite in prayer for success in our search for a just and lasting peace.” —John F. Kennedy, “Prayer for Peace,” Memorial Day 1962
Along with helping you remember our fallen veterans, we hope these quotes bring you courage, similar to these courage quotes.
Memorial Day quotes about freedom
26. “The patriot’s blood is the seed of freedom’s tree.” —Thomas Campbell
27. “Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
28. “Veterans are a symbol of what makes our nation great, and we must never forget all they have done to ensure our freedom.” —Rodney Frelinghuysen
29. “I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free … so other people would be also free.” —Rosa Parks
30. “This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.” —Elmer Davis
31. “I had reasoned this out in my mind: There was one of two things I had a right to—liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other.” —Harriet Tubman
32. “This is the day we pay homage to all those who didn’t come home. This is not Veterans Day, it’s not a celebration, it is a day of solemn contemplation over the cost of freedom.” —Tamra Bolton
33. “No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.” —General Douglas MacArthur
If you’re loving these Memorial Day quotes but are looking for quotes geared more toward veterans, check out these Veterans Day quotes that honor those who have served.
Memorial Day quotes about America
34. “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” —John F. Kennedy
35. “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.” —James Baldwin
36. “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.” —Charles de Gaulle
37. “I believe our flag is more than just cloth and ink. It is a universally recognized symbol that stands for liberty, and freedom. It is the history of our nation, and it’s marked by the blood of those who died defending it.” —John Thune
38. “Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.” —John Adams
39. “America without her soldiers would be like God without his angels.” —Claudia Pemberton
40. “America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.” —Harry S. Truman
41. “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America.” —William J. Clinton
If you’re wanting to take a long weekend this holiday, these Memorial Day getaways should do the trick.
Memorial day quotes about courage
42. “Here men endured that a nation might live.” —Herbert Hoover
43. “Without a sign his sword the brave man draws and asks no omen but his country’s cause.” —Homer
44. “Honor to the Soldier, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause. Honor also to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field, and serves, as best he can, the same cause—honor to him, less only than to him, who braves, for the common good, the storms of heaven and the storms of battle.” —Abraham Lincoln
45. “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 M. Granholm
46. “You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.” —Aristotle
47. “Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country.” —George Washington
48. “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” —Mark Twain
49. “Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
50. “Never was so much owed by so many to so few.” —Winston Churchill
51. “Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.” —Emma Donoghue
52. “Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.” —Colonel David Hackworth
53. “The brave die never, though they sleep in dust, their courage nerves a thousand living men.” —Minot J. Savage
54. “Who kept the faith and fought the fight; The glory theirs, the duty ours.” —Wallace Bruce
55. “And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier’s tomb, and beauty weeps the brave.” —Joseph Rodman Drake
56. “Let their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.” —Daniel Webster
57. “The legacy of brave men and women who have fought and died for their country is the freedom we enjoy as Americans.” –Lucian Adams
58. “In valor there is hope.” —Tacitus
59. “What I can do for my country, I am willing to do.” —Christopher Gadsen
60. “Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.” —G.K. Chesterton
Now that you’ve gone through these Memorial Day quotes, learn the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day (if you don’t already know, you’re not alone).
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Additional reporting by Molly Pennington, PhD.
Originally Published: March 23, 2022
