Sunday, March 16, 2008 – The Odder Quotes About Patriotism
Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles. ~ George Jean Nathan
The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy. ~ David Hume
I do not mean to exclude altogether the idea of patriotism. I know it exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But I will venture to assert, that a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward. ~ George Washington
Patriotism ruins history. ~ Goethe
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair. ~ H. L. Mencken
I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. ~ James Baldwin (in Paris)
When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home. ~ Winston Churchill
During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism. ~ Howard Thurman
The nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which. ~ Mark Twain
The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? ~ Pablo Casals
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1824
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. ~ Oscar Wilde
If you can’t get them to salute when they should salute and wear the clothes you tell them to wear, how are you going to get them to die for their country? ~ General George S. Patton
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons. ~ Bertrand Russell
The time is fast approaching when to call a man a patriot will be the deepest insult you can offer him. Patriotism now means advocating plunder in the interest of the privileged classes of the particular State system into which we have happened to be born. ~ Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen. ~ Ambrose Bierce
Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first. ~ Charles de Gaulle
We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other. ~ General George Marshall
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. ~ Albert Einstein
To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography. ~ George Santayana
The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one. ~ William Shenstone
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. ~ Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary
A private man, however successful in his own dealing, if his country perish is involved in her destruction; but if he be an unprosperous citizen of a prosperous city, he is much more likely to recover. Seeing, then, that States can bear the misfortunes of individuals, but individuals cannot bear the misfortunes of States, let us all stand by our country. ~ Thucydides
He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick
My country is the world, and my religion to do good. ~ Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man
Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country. ~ Sinclair Lewis
What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child? ~ Lin Yutang
Just Above Sunset 