Be a Hero for a Better World ... Every Act of Kindness Makes a Difference!
   

Peace is Patriotic

 

Unless our conception of patriotism is progressive, it cannot hope to embody the real affection and the real interest of the nation.
-- Jane Addams

Love of country is like love of woman -- he loves her best who seeks to bestow on her the highest good.
-- Felix Adler

 

It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
-- Baha'u'llah

* 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 A. Baldwin

"We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is a patriotism above the narrow sentiment which usually stops at one's country, and thus inspires jealousy and enmity in dealing with others... Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world. The first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours."
-- Lord Baden-Powell

* Militarism is no longer a synonym for patriotism. Our survival as a planet depends on maintaining peace and justice.
-- Blasé Bonpane

 

Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.
-- James Bryce

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?
-- Pablo Casals

I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.
-- Edith Cavell

"My country, right or wrong" is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying "My mother, drunk or sober."
-- G. K. Chesterton

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.
-- Arthur C. Clarke

The Patriot Act is certainly a concern; all of those things are dangerous. I think more important than me preaching is that we as a nation have to have the debate. I don't know what the answers are. I just know that if the idea is to say talking about it makes you unpatriotic, I've got to call your bluff on that.
-- George Clooney

 

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
-- Henry Steele Commager

A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
-- George William Curtis

* “I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it. I have benefited greatly from the freedom that exists in my country and for this I am eternally grateful.”
-- Johnny Depp

 

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.
-- Clarence Seward Darrow
 

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
-- Barbara Ehrenreich

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
-- Albert Einstein

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!
-- Albert Einstein

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

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

How is it that this debate has been twisted on its head, that somehow those that advocate peace and diplomacy are anti-American?
-- Janeane Garofalo


Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity, only as we love all other lands. The interests, rights, and liberties of American citizens are no more dear to us than are those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury.
-- William Lloyd Garrison

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
-- Charles de Gaulle

Patriotism ruins history.
-- Johann von Goethe

Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.
-- Emma Goldman

of the clergy.
-- David Hume

What we need are critical lovers of America - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it.
-- Hubert Humphrey

One of the great attractions of patriotism -- it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.
~ Aldous Huxley

He loves his country best who strives to make it best.
~ Robert G. Ingersoll

If there is any fixed star in our constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
-- Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
-- Samuel Johnson

Patriotism does not oblige us to acquiesce in the destruction of liberty. Patriotism obliges us to question it, at least.
-- Wendy Kaminer

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
-- John F. Kennedy

"I criticize America because I love her. I want her to stand as a moral example to the world."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
-- Abraham Lincoln


"You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it."
-- Malcom X

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.
-- Guy de Maupassant

We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us..... The old "manifest destiny" idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can - and that without cant, without the assumption of self-righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations.
-- Francis John McConnell

The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard.
-- George McGovern

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

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular.
-- Edward R. Murrow

Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.
-- George Jean Nathan

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
-- Barack Obama

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
-- Blaise Pascal

Chaim Potok: ““Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a 'universal' without patriotism, without home who has found his people everywhere.”

 

“Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a 'universal' without patriotism, without home who has found his people everywhere.” - Chaim Potok

 

"We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is a patriotism above the narrow sentiment which usually stops at one's country, and thus inspires jealousy and enmity in dealing with others... Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world."
-- Lord Baden-Powell, founder of Boy Scouts

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else."
-- Theodore Roosevelt

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
-- Theodore Roosevelt (1918)

 

"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead."
-- Arundhati Roy
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
-- Bertrand Russell

The peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: "Our country -- when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right."
-- Carl Schurz

I have no sense of nationalism, only a cosmic consciousness of belonging to the human family.
-- Rosika Schwimmer

* "I'm tired of being labelled anti-American because I ask questions."
-- Susan Sarandon

The peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: "Our country -- when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right."
-- Carl Schurz

I have no sense of nationalism, only a cosmic consciousness of belonging to the human family.
-- Rosika Schwimmer

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.
-- Margaret Chase Smith

Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism, are all too frequently those who . . . ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism—the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, the right of independent thought.
-- Margaret Chase Smith


What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility ... a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
-- Adlai Stevenson

Do not... regard the critics as questionable patriots. What were Washington and Jefferson and Adams but profound critics of the colonial status quo?
-- Adlai Stevenson

During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.
-- Howard Thurman

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
-- Mark Twain

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let me label you as they may.
-- Mark Twain

The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
-- Mark Twain

World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest sense,in its only sense, the patriotism of humans who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good.
-- Peter Ustinov

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
-- Voltaire

"I loathe nationalism. It is a form of tribalism--the idolatry of the 20th century."
-- Cornel West

Patriotism, the virtue of the vicious.
-- Oscar Wilde

There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity, hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom. The other vision finds its roots in the spirit of our founding revolution and in the leaders of this nation who embraced the age of reason. It loves freedom, encourages diversity, embraces science and affirms the dignity and rights of every individual. It sees America as a moral nation, neither completely religious nor completely secular. It defines patriotism as love of country and of the people who make it strong. It defends all citizens against unjust coercion and irrational conformity. This second vision is our vision. It is the vision of a free society. We must be bold enough to proclaim it and strong enough to defend it against all its enemies.
-- Rabbi Sherwin Wine

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
-- Howard Zinn

 

 

 

 

 

Read
The Better World
Shopping Guide

Every Dollar Makes
a Difference

Purchase at Amazon.com


Read

The BETTER
WORLD BOOK

... join the betterworld
movement...

FREE online

IN SEARCH OF UTOPIA:
100+ Milestones
To Our Utopian Future

paperback
99 cent Kindle edition
Youtube Video

1 Percent | Abundance | Acceptance | Accomplishments| Accountability| Achievement| Acknowledge | Action| Activism| Activists| Adversity | Advertising | Age | Alienation | AIDS | Anger | Animals | Answers | Approval | Art | Aspiration | Attitude | Attraction | Awe | Bankruptcy | Banks | Be Yourself | Begin Now | Beliefs | Belonging | Bernie Sanders | Better World | Biodiversity | Black History | Breathe| Brotherhood | Campaign Finance Reform | Cure Cancer | Causes | Celebrate | Challenge | Change | Chaos | Character | Charity | Children | Child Soldiers | Choices | Citizens United | Citizenship | Civil Disobedience | Civil Rights | Climate Change | College Tuition | Civilization | Collaboration |Comfort | Comfortable | Community | Compassion| Competition| Compromise| Confidence| Conflict Resolution| Connection | Conscious Evolution | Consciousness | Conscience | Conservation | Consumerism | Cooperation | CoOps | Corporate Personhood | Corporations | Corruption | Couples | Courage| Creativity | Criticism | Culture of Peace | Curiosity | Debt | Democracy| Department of Peace | Depression | Deregulation | Desire| Destiny| Dialogue | Dignity | Disabilities | Disarmament | Disasters| Diversity | Do The Right Thing | Dreams | Ecology | Economy | Ecosystem | Education | Effort | Ego | Elders | Election Reform | Emotions | Empathy| Empower| Encourage | End Citizens United | Enemies | Energy | Enthusiasm | Envision | Envy | Equality | Evil | Example| Excellence| Exercise| Expectations| Experience | Fair Trade | Failure | Fame | Family | Fast Track | Fathers | Fear | Feelings | Focus | Forests | Forgiveness | Fracking | Freedom | Friendship | Future | Global Awakening | Global Warming | Globalization | GMO Labeling | Goals | Goodwill | Government | Grassroots | Gratitude | Greed | Habitat | Habits | Happiness | Healing | Health | Heart | Heroes | History | Home | Homeless | Honor | Hope | Hugs | Human Rights | Humanitarian | Humanity | Humor | Hunger  | Ideals | Idealist | Imagination | Imagine | Improvement | Inclusion | Income Inequality | Indigenous | Individuality | Infrastructure | Inner Peace | Inspire | Integrity | Intention| Interconnection | Interdependence | Institutions | Interfaith | Intuition | Invention | Jealousy | Joy | Justice | Keystone XL Pipeline | Kind Word | Kindness | Kinship | Know Thyself | Knowledge | Labor | Landmines | Language | Laughter | Law | Leadership | Liberals | Listening | Literacy | Living | Living Wage | Love | Loneliness| Luck| Make a Difference| Mankind| Marriage| Meaning of Life | Media | Meditation | Memories| Mentoring| Microcredit | Military Budget | Millennium Development Goals | Minimum Wage | Miracles | Mission | Mistakes | Money | Morality| Mothers| Motivation| Movements| Music| Mystery| Mystical | Natural Resources | Nature | Networking| Nonconformity | No Fast Track | No Nukes | Nonviolence | Now | NSA Surveillance | Nurture | Obstacles | Opportunity | Oppression | Options | Organize | Parents | Pain | Parks | Participation | Partnership | Patience | Patriot Act | Patriotic | Peace | Peace On Earth | Peacekeeping | Peacetopia | Perseverance | Personal Growth | Personhood | Philanthropy | Philosophy | Plan | Police Militarization | Politics | Population | Positivity | Possibilities | Potential | Poverty | Power | Praise | Present | Pride | Principles | Priorities | Prison Reform | Problem Solving | Protest | Progress | Progressive | Prosperity | Public Opinion | Purpose | Question | Racism | Recycling | Redemption | Regulations | Reinvent | Remembered | Refugees| Resist | Resources | Respect | Responsibility | Revenge | Role Model | Root Causes | Sadness| Satisfaction| Science | Searching| Security| Self-Discovery| Self-Esteem| Self-Improvement| Senior Citizens | Shadow | Silence| Simplicity | Sisters | Skeptic | Slavery | Smile | Smoking | Social Entrepreneurs | Social Security | Society | Solace | Solitude | Solutions | Soulmates | Species Exctinction | Spirituality | Status Quo | Strength | Success | Sustainability | Sympathy | Talent | Tax Reform | Teachers | Teamwork | Technology | Thanksgiving | Thoughts | Time | Time Out to Refocus| Tolerance | Torture | TPP | Trees | Trust| Truth| Understanding | United Nations | Utopia | Values | Vegetarian | Veterans | Victory | Violence| Volunteer | Waiting | War | Water | Wealth Inequality |Wealth | Whistleblowers | Wilderness | Wildlife | Will | Willing | Willpower | WIN-WIN | Winning | Wisdom | Wishes | Witness | Women | Wonder | Woods | Work | World Federation | Worrying | Youth

Explore YOUR family tree
and Find YOUR Roots & Connections


Better World Handbook
by Ellis Jones, et al

Buy This Book


BetterWorld Heroes are included for illustration purposes. No endorsement implied.

We Can Build A Better World


BetterWorld Shopping Guide
by Ellis Jones

Buy This Book