It’s strange that if your search for quotes about one of the most momentous days in American history, the only ones you’re likely to find are the ones mindlessly cut-and-pasted over and over by numbnuts who probably aren’t even reading them. Because if you look at the attributions on this oft-repeated list, you’ll notice all the quotes were either from the movies Tora! Tora! Tora!, Pearl Harbor, or one of the people who made the latter. Here’s all we came up with. Feel free to share if you know of others.

First, the reason it’s referred to as the “day of infamy” is because Franklin D. Roosevelt said:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live on in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

And interestingly, the brilliant quote often attributed to the Fleet Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy – Isoroku Yamamoto – was only uttered by his character, first in the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! as:

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.

And in an abbreviated form in the movie Pearl Harbor as:

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant

Personally, I think the sentiments of the day were summed up many years before it actually occurred:

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced and the inconvenience is often considerable.
- Jane Austen