Rutherford B. Hayes Quotes

I dare say there may be some men and women in the Armed Forces who are so decent that they would say: Give the Iraqi people money, we do not want to be paid back. That is the strength of our country.

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.

There are a lot of people who can be classified as heroes and do great things and inspire me.

A boy doesn't have to go to war to be a hero; he can say he doesn't like pie when he sees there isn't enough to go around.

America is unique in the history of the world. During this last century, there was only one nation that laid down hundreds of thousands of lives of its own sons and daughters and asked for nothing for itself …. America is unique. You took no land from the Germans, no land from the Japanese. All you asked for was enough land to bury your dead.

Whatever miseries this war brings upon us, it is making us wiser, and, we trust, better. Wiser, for we are learning our weakness, our narrowness, our selfishness, our ignorance, in lessons of sorrow and shame. Better, because all that is noble in men and women is demanded by the time, and our people are rising to the standard the time calls for. For this is the question the hour is putting to each of us: Are you ready, if need be, to sacrifice all that you have and hope for in this world, that the generations to follow you may inherit a whole country whose natural condition shall be peace, and not a broken province which must live under the perpetual threat, if not in the constant presence, of war and all that war brings with it? If we are all ready for this sacrifice, battles may be lost, but the campaign and its grand object must be won.

More than any other people on Earth, we bear burdens and accept risks unprecedented in their size and their duration, not for ourselves alone but for all who wish to be free.

I have enormous respect for anyone who would offer to sacrifice their life to defend my right to live. Is there any greater gift one can give another?

In so many ways, World War II was one of the lowest lows imaginable, yet some of my most treasured memories come from that time. Communities came together, people displayed a wonderful generosity of spirit and I saw the bravery of our boys on the front line as they fought for our freedom.

If people knew how much ill-feeling unselfishness occasions, it would not be so often recommended from the pulpit.

Selfish is easy. It's sharing that takes courage.

The enduring realization that when a great challenge comes, the most ordinary people can show that they value something more than they value their own lives. When the last of the veterans had gone, and the sorrows and bitterness which the war created had at last worn away, this memory remained.

It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever.

If I have to lay an egg for my country, I'll do it.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.

It's kind of bittersweet. The human spirit is not measured by the size of the act, but by the size of the heart.

Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy.

I'm fascinated how often and with what whole-heartedness people will risk their lives to perform acts of courage, sacrifice, and compassion for total strangers.

There is no glory in war, yet from the blackness of its history, there emerge vivid colours of human character and courage. Those who risked their lives to help their friends.

To set the cause above renown.

Look, I would say that anyone who does this work and doesn't have a strain of idealism is an adrenaline junkie or completely narcissistic. There is no other justification. You're risking your life, and if anything happens, it's our families who suffer tremendously.