Nationalism, Patriotism Quotes

“Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone and as irrational as a headless hen.” Ambrose Bierce
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“Patriotism is a religion, the egg from which wars are hatched.” Guy de Maupassant
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“Patriotism is a menace to liberty.” Emma Goldman
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“Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.” George Bernard Shaw
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“Patriotism is a superstition, one far more injurious, brutal and inhumane than religion.” Gustave Herve
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“Patriotism - the virtue of the vicious.” Oscar Wilde
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“Patriotism is a survival from barbarous times which must not only be evoked and educated but which must be eradicated by all means - by preaching, persuasion, contempt and ridicule.” Leo Tolstoy
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“You’ll never have a quiet world until you knock the patriotism out of the human race.” George Bernard Shaw
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“A patriot sets himself apart in his own country under his own flag, sneers at other nations and keeps an army of uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people’s countries and keep them from grabbing slices of his. In the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for ‘the universal brotherhood of man’ - with his mouth.” Mark Twain, The Lowest Animal
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“This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism on command, senseless violence and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism.” Albert Einstein
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“Patriotism means advocating plunder in the interests of the privileged class of your particular country. The time will soon come when calling someone a patriot will be the deepest insult.” Ernest. B. Bax
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“Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people are surrounded by ‘a world of enemies’ - ‘one against all’ - and that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.” Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p.227
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“Seas of blood have been shed for the sake of patriotism. One would expect the harm and irrationality of patriotism to be self-evident to everyone. But the surprising fact is that cultured and learned people not only do not notice the harm and stupidity of patriotism, they resist every unveiling of it with the greatest obstinacy and passion (with no rational grounds), and continue to praise it as beneficent and elevating.” Leo Tolstoy
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“Blind patriotism has been kept intact by rewriting history to provide people with moral consolation and a psychological basis for denial.” William H. Boyer
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“Patriotism is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a web of lies and falsehoods, robbing us of our dignity and increasing our arrogance and conceit.” Emma Goldman
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“In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” Mark Twain
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“If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy... But the American way is to criticize and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country.” Michael Parenti
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“During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.” Howard Thurman
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“Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism— how passionately I hate them!” Stephen Decatur
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“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.” William Shakespeare

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 - (1902-1998) Historian and author

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