Quotes on Patriotism
Patriotism Quotes:
"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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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it." George Bernard Shaw
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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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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it." George Bernard Shaw
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" In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell." - H. L. Mencken
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"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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Let those who would die for the flag on the field of battle give a better proof of their patriotism and a higher glory to their country by promoting fraternity and justice: Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893: - Inaugural Address,
1889
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A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. Edward Abbey
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"More men, woman and children have probably died under the banner of Nationalism and Patriotism than any other unnatural cause." Gary Amirault
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"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." -- Edward Abbey
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“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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"I refuse to be silent any longer. I refuse to be party to an illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to deserve our aggression. My oath of office is to protect and defend America's laws and its people. By refusing unlawful orders for an illegal war, I fulfill that oath today." - U.S. Army First Lt. Ehren Watada
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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 purity of its heart." Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The feeling of patriotism - It is an immoral feeling because, instead of confessing himself a son of God . . . or even a free man guided by his own reason, each man under the influence of patriotism confesses himself the son of his fatherland and the slave of his government, and commits actions contrary to his reason and conscience." Leo Tolstoy, Patriotism and Government
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Sometimes those who appear to be unpatriotic are the true patriots. Gary Amirault
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Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph: Haile Selassie
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"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." -- Edward Abbey
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"The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery." Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), US civil rights leader
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I love my country, it's the government I'm afraid of.
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Killing terrorists simply produces more terrorists, the killer being one of them.
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CS Lewis also had some interesting thoughts on this which appear in the Screwtape Letters. Here is an excerpt from what an elder demon told his nephew (who was in charge with leading a man away from God):
"Let him begin by treating Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of the partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which religion merely becomes part of the 'Cause'...Once you have made the World an end, and Faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing."