Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

“Bayonet!”

“This is a great country, and it is a great country because of the great men and women who have made it so.”

“Valor is self-respecting.”

“In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls.”

“We know not of the future, and cannot plan for it much. But we can determine and know what manner of men we will be whenever and wherever the hour strikes.”

“It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.”

“The power of noble deeds is to be preserved and passed on to the future.”

“The inspiration of a noble cause involving human interests wide and far, enables men to do things they did not dream themselves capable of before, and which they were not capable of alone.”

“We know not of the future, and cannot plan for it much.”

“This is the great reward of service, to live, far out and on, in the life of others.”

“Generous men are rarest, and they are worth waiting for.”

“War is for the participants a test of character; it makes bad men worse and good men better.”

“True fortitude is seen in great exploits that justice warrants and that public good requires.”

“But we know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his constitution a religious animal.”

“Generals are a weary kind. Their battles are fought out long ago, and they only wait for the final skirmish with the last enemy.”

“The inspiration of a noble cause involving human interests wide and far, enables men to do things they did not dream themselves capable of before, and which they were not capable of alone.”

“War is for the participants a test of character; it makes bad men worse and good men better.”

“The soul of a man is a far country, which cannot be approached or explored.”

“The power of noble deeds is to be preserved and passed on to the future.”