Benjamin Harrison Quotes

When we ponder that vast throng who have died honorably defending home and hearth, we contemplate those immortal words, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' The feelings of heartfelt gratitude for the supreme sacrifice made by so many cannot be confined to a Memorial Day, a military parade, or a decorated grave.

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.

Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade.

On Memorial Day, we remember the service of those brave military men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice defending and protecting our freedoms.

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?

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.

Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them.

A nation that fails to honor its heroes, soon will have no heroes to honor.

This Memorial Day should remind us of the greatness that past generations of Americans achieved from Valley Forge to Vietnam, and it should inspire us with the determination to keep America great and free by keeping America safe and strong in our own time, a time of unique destiny and opportunity for our Nation.

Alas, how can we help but mourn When hero bosoms yield their breath! A century itself may bear But once the flower of such a death.

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

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

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

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.

I've received many honors and I'm grateful for them; but I've already received the highest award I'll ever receive, and that has been the privilege and honor of serving very proudly in the United States Navy.

Haven't you heard the Democrats disparage people who sign up? It's something I've never understood. Okay, you don't like the military, fine and dandy, but why impugn the people that sign up? They're signing up knowing full well they're volunteering. They're offering their lives, potentially. Why impugn 'em? Why go out...? Because it's an opportunity to criticize America; that's why. Because in the Democrat world, nobody would ever join the military. "Good Lord, we'd go to Yale - hell, we'd go to Dartmouth - before we go to the military!

Millions of citizens are deeply disturbed that the military-industrial complex too often shapes national policy, but they do not want to be considered unpatriotic.

Some 3,500 Muslims now serve in the U.S. military. The overwhelming majority of them are loyal Americans who see no conflict between their personal religious duty and service to their country. But there can no place in our military for those persons of any faith who do. America has now seen the horrors of what 'diversity at any cost' can lead to.

... the basic principles of the military services are unchangeable. Courage and candor, obedience and comradeship, love of fatherland and loyalty to the State: these are ever the distinguishing characteristics of the soldier and sailor. Building character through intelligent training and education is always the first and greatest goal.

War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valor, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

Never forget that the most sacred right on this earth is mans right to have the earth to till with his own hands, the most sacred sacrifice the blood that a man sheds for this earth.

Patriotism is the vital condition of national permanence.

America remembers. On this 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the nation honors those who were lost.