Sunday, May 24, 2020 – This Memorial Day
These heroes are dead. They died for liberty – they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless – under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless Place of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars – they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the living; tears for the dead. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
The dead soldier’s silence sings our national anthem. ~ Aaron Kilbourn
They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly. ~ Corra Harris
Self-trust is the essence of heroism. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
A hero is one who knows how to hang on one minute longer. ~ Novalis
In valor there is hope. ~ Tacitus
Without heroes, we are all plain people, and don’t know how far we can go. ~ Bernard Malamud
I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
That’s what it takes to be a hero, a little gem of innocence inside you that makes you want to believe that there still exists a right and wrong, that decency will somehow triumph in the end. ~ Lise Hand
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it. ~ Thucydides
The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example. ~ Benjamin Disraeli
True patriotism isn’t cheap. It’s about taking on a fair share of the burden of keeping America going. ~ Robert Reich
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? ~ Henry Ward Beecher
And each man stands with his face in the light of his own drawn sword. Ready to do what a hero can. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism. ~ George Washington
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. ~ Mark Twain
Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade. ~ Philip James Bailey
Bravery never goes out of fashion. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray
Who sows virtue reaps honor. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
Over all our happy country, over all our Nation spread, Is a band of noble heroes, is our Army of the Dead. ~ Will Carleton
From out of the ground a eulogy grows and becomes a poppy. ~ Nanette L. Avery
Heroes are made by the paths they choose, not the powers they are graced with. ~ Brodi Ashton
No, what he didn’t like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk. ~ Terry Pratchett
I don’t regard James Bond precisely as a hero, but at least he does get on and do his duty, in an extremely corny way. ~ Ian Fleming
Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes. ~ Mark Twain
As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary. ~ Ernest Hemingway
I am of certain convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel. ~ Florence Nightingale
The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not. ~ Philip K. Dick
I think the hero observes that nothing is so frightening as a labyrinth with no center. ~ Jorge Luis Borges
To be heroic does not have to mean possessing the ability to stand against the evils of the world, either well or successfully, but just that one is willing to stand. ~ Mike Alsford
Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth. ~ Will Rogers
When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home. ~ Tecumseh
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. ~ Winston Churchill
He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ~ Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Just Above Sunset 