As we all get ready to celebrate a long 3-Day weekend and head out on our road trips or plan our backyard barbecues, I ask that we all take a little time to remember what it is exactly we are celebrating, Memorial Day.

Memorial Day is an important day in America. It’s a day to give thanks, to not only pay tribute and remember those who gave their lives to protect our country, but also to honor the freedom in which they upheld.

To help celebrate the true meaning behind Memorial Day and honor the people who gave their lives to ensure our right to freedom, here are 20 powerful quotes we feel are very fitting.

1. “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country – Nathan Hale 
2. “Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.” – President Harry S. Truman 
3. “I don’t have to tell you how fragile this precious gift of freedom is. Every time we hear, watch, or read the news, we are reminded that liberty is a rare commodity in this world.” – President Ronald Reagan
4. “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower
5. “It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” – General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr.
6. “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America.” – President Bill Clinton
7. “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” — General George S. Patton
8. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” – President Thomas Jefferson        
9. “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.”  – Thomas Bailey Aldrich
10. “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” – Mark Twain
11. “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” – Plato
12. “In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.” – President Franklin D. Roosevelt
13. “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” – President John F. Kennedy
14. “Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” – President George Washington
15. “We come, not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them.” – Francis A. Walker
16. “Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion.” – President Calvin Coolidge
17. “Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.” – Daniel Webster
18. “The brave die never, though they sleep in dust: Their courage nerves a thousand living men.” – Minot J. Savage
19. “Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.” – President Harry S. Truman
20. “For love of country, they accepted death.” – President James A. Garfield