PatriotismBooks about Patriotism Click this icon to engrave the quote on mugs, bookmarks, t-shirts and much more
"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."
"I am thankful to have had these ten weeks of quiet to get ready. Now I have had them and have been kindly treated here. I expected my sentence and I believe it was just. Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone."
Executed (shot) for helping allied soldiers to escape from Brussels to neutral territory in Holland during World War I.
http://www.edithcavell.org.uk/
"Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."
(note: Clinton borrowed from Eisenhower for this one)
-David G. Farragut, Said to his wife when he was "sticking to the flag" after Virginia seceded from the Union in April 1861
The Noble Lord advocates Union, what doth such a union mean? When the Smaller unites with the greater, what happens? The greater absorbs and engulfs the lesser, it is ever thus and so will be! There are ten times as many English as Scots. Think you then, when the ten becomes eleven, the eleventh will partner the ten? Or, be swallowed up by the ten? Is this what my Lord of Stair wants? An end to Scotland? The most ancient nation in Christendom, a kingdom when England was but a medley of warring tribes! Scotland, from whence Christianity spread to the English. Scotland, a people with their own Kirk and laws, their freedoms, customs and pride. Is all that for which our forefathers fought for untold generations, to be merely thrown aside for a mess of trading privileges and navigation rights? I would rather that Scotland sank to the bottom of the ocean rather than we lost one least part of our cherished Independence and ages old identity!
-Andrew Fletcher, From the minutes of the Scottish parliament of 1703
"Even if I died in the service of the nation, I would be proud of it. Every drop of my blood... will contribute to the growth of this nation and to make it strong and dynamic."
-Nathan Hale, Executed as a spy by the British. Last words spoken as a reply to Provost-Major William Cunningham when asked to make his dying “speech and confession.” Cunningham, a disgrace to the British army, was later hanged in England, September 22, 1776
Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.
A tide began to surge beneath the calm surface of Stephen's friendliness.
This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am.
Try to be one of us, repeated Davin. In your heart you are an Irishman but your pride is too powerful.
My ancestors threw off their language and took another, Stephen said. They allowed a handful of foreigners to subject them. Do you fancy that I am going to pay in my own life and person debts they made? What for?
For our freedom, said Davin.
No honourable and sincere man, said Stephen, has given up to you his life and his youth and his affections from the days of Wolfe Tone to those of Parnell, but you sold him to the enemy or failed him in need or reviled him and left him for another. And you invite me to be one of you. I'd see you damned first.
They died for their ideals, Stevie, said Davin. Our day will come yet, believe me.
Stephen, following his own thought, was silent for an instant...
When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets ... Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.
-James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres56.html [precedents to this quotation can be found under Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Warren Harding, and Kahlil Gibran]
"We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Breathes there a man with soul so dead that it does not glow at the thought of what the men of his blood have done and suffered to make his country what it is? There is room, plenty of room, for proper pride of land and birth. What I inveigh against is a cursed spirit of intolerance, conceived in distrust and bred in ignorance, that makes the mental attitude perennially antagonistic, even bitterly antagonistic, to everything foreign, that subordinates everywhere the race to the nation, forgetting the higher claims of human brotherhood.
-William Osler, Chauvinism in Medicine [Address given to the Canadian Medical Association, Montreal, Canada]. [Reprinted in Aequanimitas, with Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses, and Practitioners of Medicine. Birmingham, AL: Classics of Medicine Library; 1987, September 17, 1902
It is an obscene comparison - you know I am not sure I like it - but you know there was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck," he said. "Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions...
...It starts with a feeling of patriotism within oneself. It carries through with a certain knowledge that the country as a whole - and for all the right reasons - felt and continues to feel this surge of patriotism within themselves. And one finds oneself saying: 'I know the right question, but you know what? This is not exactly the right time to ask it.'
-Dan Rather, [admitting, that "patriotism run amok" was in danger of trampling the freedom of American journalists to ask tough questions]
Some reformers may urge that in the ages distant future, patriotism, like the habit of monogamous marriage, will become a needless and obsolete virtue; but just at present the man who loves other countries as much as he does his own is quite as noxious a member of society as the man who loves other women as much as he loves his wife. Love of country is an elemental virtue, like love of home.
I am saying voluntarily that I have sung for almost every religious group in the country, from Jewish and Catholic, and Presbyterian and Holy Rollers and Revival Churches. I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American.
We talk a great deal about patriotism. 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 which will enable America to remain master of her power — to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. The dedication of a lifetime — these are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.
Books about Patriotism
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