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 |
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 |
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
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Ask
not what your country can do for you, but what you
can do for your country.
-- John
F. Kennedy |
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"I
criticize America because I love her. I want her
to stand as a moral example to the world."
--
Martin
Luther King, Jr
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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
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"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
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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
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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
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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
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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
“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 |
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Patriotism
is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial
reasons.
-- Bertrand
Russell
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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
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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
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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
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|
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
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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
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It
is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become
the enemy of the rest of mankind.
-- Voltaire
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"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
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"There
is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing
innocent people."
-- Howard
Zinn
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