Quotes About Patriotism

“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
― Mark Twain

“I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.”
― George Carlin

“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
― Howard Zinn

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Occasionally the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.”
― Ronald Reagan

“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.”
― Albert Einstein

“In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.”
― Barack Obama

“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.”
― Thomas Paine

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
― Edward Abbey

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
― James Baldwin

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.”
― Mark Twain

“My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Defendant

“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril. ”
― Winston Churchill

“It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.”
― Aristotle, Selected Writings From The Nicomachean Ethics And Politics

“The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious”
― Oscar Wilde

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in the crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
― Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

“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

“Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.”
― Bertrand Russell

“All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.”
― François Fénelon

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
― Samuel Johnson

“But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander

“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

“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

“My old man says when it's time to be counted, the important thing is to be man enough to stand up.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Between Planets

“I'd like to see a flag made not out of stars and stripes, but rather fingers and knuckles, so that it could really wave in the wind. It would be the most welcoming flag in all the world.”
― Jarod Kintz, The Days of Yay are Here! Wake Me Up When They're Over.