“Old soldiers never die, they just fade away. ”
Audio clip (ogg format)
1950s, Farewell address to Congress (1951)
Context: I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away."
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.
“Philosophies, like old soldiers, do not die, they merely fade away.”
Pragmatism and the Outlook of Modern Science (1966)
“It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out.”
Playboy interview (1980)
Context: It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. I don't appreciate worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or of dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison — it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive. Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo.
Audio clip (ogg format)
1950s, Farewell address to Congress (1951)
c. 1831
version in original Dutch (citaat van Johannes Warnardus Bilders, in Nederlands): Toen telde ik, op de binnenplaats mijns vaders in tweestrijd, de knoopen van mijn jas: soldaat of schilder, soldaat, schilder, soldaat, schilder.. ..de laatste knoop zei schilder, en zoo besliste het toeval, dat ik schilder zou worden [c. 1831].
J.W. Bilders was fighting as a Dutch volunteer in the Belgium Independents War against The Netherlands. 1830
Source: 1880's, Johannes Warnardus Bilders' (1887/1900), p. 78
“I feel half faded away like some figure in the background of an old picture.”
Source: A Severed Head
