Commemoration Quotes

“My religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative evolution. I desire that no public monument or work of art or inscription or sermon or ritual service commemorating me shall suggest that I accepted the tenets peculiar to any established church or denomination nor take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice.

[From the will of GBS]”
― George Bernard Shaw

“As individuals die every moment, how insensitive and fabricated a love it is to set aside a day from selfish routine in prideful, patriotic commemoration of tragedy. Just as God is provoked by those who tithe simply because they feel that they must tithe, I am provoked by those who commemorate simply because they feel that they must commemorate.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“My biggest hope for this work is that it will help others to remember the sacrifices made for our freedom, and even more so to remember that the men, women, and children all involved in and affected by this era were not just statistics: they were people just like we are, with the same hopes, dreams, and very imminent fears.”
― J. Neven-Pugh, press release

“If I could sum up my poetry in a few well-chosen words, the result might be a poem. Several years ago, when I was asked to say something on this topic, I came up with the notion that for me the making of poems is both a commemoration (a moment captured) and an evocation (the archaeologist manqué side of me digging into something buried and bringing it to light). But I also said that I find the processes that bring poems into being mysterious, and I wouldn't really wish to know them; the thread that links the first unwilled impulse to the object I acknowledge as the completed poem is a tenuous one, easily broken. If I knew the answers to these riddles, I would write more poems, and better ones. "Simple Poem" is as close as I can get to a credo':

Simple Poem

I shall make it simple so you understand.
Making it simple will make it clear for me.
When you have read it, take me by the hand
As children do, loving simplicity.

This is the simple poem I have made.
Tell me you understand. But when you do
Don't ask me in return if I have said
All that I meant, or whether it is true.”
― Anthony Thwaite

“Most people are not really scared of death. They are merely terrified of being taken to a mortuary and/or being buried or cremated and/or being forgotten.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“In wartime, everyone's birthday turns into a commemoration of something so sad.”
― Danny M. Cohen, Train

“My biggest hope for this work is that it will help others to remember the sacrifices made for our freedom, and even more so to remember that the men, women, and children all involved in and affected by this era were not just statistics: they were people just like we are, with the same hopes, dreams, and very imminent fears.”
― J. Neven-Pugh

“We are sometimes asked in the name of patriotism to forget the merits of this fearful struggle [the Civil War], and to remember with equal admiration those who struck at the nation’s life, and those who struck to save it—those who fought for slavery, and those who fought for liberty and justice.

I am no minister of malice. I would not strike the fallen. I would not repel the repentant, but may my right hand forget its cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I forget the difference between the parties to that terrible, protracted and bloody conflict.”
― Frederick Douglass

“Завтра ми вже будемо мертві
Може багато з нас
Може всі.

Не забирайте нас із землі
Не відривайте нас від матері
Не збирайте на полі бою наші рештки
Не намагайтеся наново скласти нас докупи
І — благаємо вас — ніяких хрестів
Пам’ятних знаків чи меморіальних плит.
Нам це не треба
Адже це не для нас — для себе
Ви ставите нам величні пам’ятники.
Не треба ніде карбувати наших імен.
Просто пам’ятайте:
На цьому полі
У цій землі
Лежать українські солдати
І — все.
[...]

Ось в цих окопах
Які сьогодні для нас тимчасове житло
А завтра стануть нашими могилами
Поховайте нас.

Не потрібно прощальних промов
В тиші яка настає після бою
Це завше виглядає недоречно
Це наче штурхати загиблого воїна
І просити щоб той встав.
Не треба панахид
Ми й так знаємо де тепер буде наше місце
Просто накрийте нас землею
І — йдіть.”
― Борис Гуменюк, Блокпост

“Я не принимал участие ни в каких торжественных мероприятиях [14.10.2016], ни в каких шествиях, парадах. Кстати, мне очень непонятно, чего это вдруг парад "Азова" ― это "парад патриотов"? Тогда парад "Свободы" ― это парад кого... барабанов? Я не пошел ни туда, ни сюда, а вместе со своей семьей сегодня поехал по кладбищам, где похоронены пацаны. Я не патриот?

Я разговаривал с семьей на Лесном кладбище, где похоронен боец "Азова" с позывным "Вальтер". Я стоял с его вдовой, с его дочерью, с его братом и женой брата. И никого там больше не было. Ни барабанов, ни факелов. Там вообще никого не было.”
― Георгий Тука

“In daylight we pick up our tinned rations and hike off,
every artery and nerve of us, into the rest
of our commemorative lives.”
― Tess Gallagher

“She was going to plant a Japanese maple tree on top. She had already procured it, a lovely sapling with pale bark and the most elegant limbs, long and even, fine but strong. It had been one of Edward's favorite trees; the leaves were red in spring, turning by autumn to a most beautiful bright copper color, just like Lily Millington's hair. No, not Lily Millington, she corrected herself, for that had never been her real name.
"Albertine," Lucy whispered, thinking back to that mild Hampstead afternoon when she had seen the shock of red in the glass house at the bottom of the garden and Mother had instructed her to take two cups of tea "in the finest china." "Your name was Albertine Bell."
Birdie, to those who loved her.”
― Kate Morton, The Clockmaker's Daughter

“À la mémoire de Mamu, ma grand-mère,
Qui m’a laissé au cœur et aux poumons,
cette braise ronde de pur amour,
Que j’essaie de rallumer,
Avec mes pauvres moyens,
à chaque respiration.

In memory of Mamu, my grandmother,
Who left me in the heart and in the lungs,
this round ember of pure love,
That I try to rekindle,
With my poor means,
with each breath. ”
― Alain Damasio, La Horde du Contrevent

“But it is only the three hundred, always only the three hundred, of whom the harpers sing.”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, The Shining Company

“Let you sing of us all by name, that we may live as long as the song."
"All three hundred of you?" Aneirin said, with his eyebrows quirking. "By name, aye and by reputation.”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, The Shining Company