Patriotism Quotes

America truly is the best idea for a country that anyone has ever come up with so far. Not only because we value democracy and the rights of the individual, but because we are always our own most effective voice of descent....We must never mistake disagreement between Americans on political or moral issues to be an indication of their level of patriotism. If you don't like what I say or don't agree with where I stand on certain issues, then good. I'm glad we're in America, and don't have to oppress each other over it. We're not just a nation, we're not an ethnicity. We are a dream of justice that people have had for a thousand years.

~ Craig Ferguson

What does seem to me poisonous, what breeds a type of patriotism that is pernicious if it lasts but not likely to last long in an educated adult, is the perfectly serious indoctrination of the young in knowably false or biased history - the heroic legend drably disguised as text-book fact. With this creeps in the tacit assumption that other nations have not equally their heroes; perhaps even the belief - surely it is very bad biology - that we can literally 'inherit' tradition.

~ C.s. Lewis

If you're ashamed to stand by your colours, you better seek for another flag.

~ Mokhtar Dahari

Japanese people today think of money, just money: Where is our national spirit today? The Jieitai must be the soul of Japan. … The nation has no spiritual foundation. That is why you don’t agree with me. You will just be American mercenaries. There you are in your tiny world. You do nothing for Japan. … I salute the Emperor. Long live the emperor!

~ Yukio Mishima

Beyond doubt it would speedily verify the proverb that a nation must ravage itself before foreigners can ravage it, a man must despise himself before others can despise him.

~ Yukio Mishima

I grew up in an atmosphere tinged with militarism, and afterwards I spent five boring years within the sound of bugles. To this day it gives me a faint feeling of sacrilege not to stand to attention during ‘God save the King’. That is childish, of course, but I would sooner have had that kind of upbringing than be like the left-wing intellectuals who are so ‘enlightened’ that they cannot understand the most ordinary emotions.

~ George Orwell

Patriotism is racism for the modern era.

~ Michelle Templet

From this Legionary school a new man will have to emerge, a man with heroic qualities; a giant of our history to do battle and win over all the enemies of our Fatherland, his battle and victory having to extend even beyond the material world into the realm of invisible enemies, the powers of evil. Everything that our mind can imagine as more beautiful spiritually; everything the proudest that our race can produce, greater, more just, more powerful, wiser, purer, more diligent and more heroic, this is what the Legionary school must give us! A man in whom all the possibilities of human grandeur that are implanted by God in the blood of our people be developed to the maximum. This hero, the product of Legionary education, will also know how to elaborate programs; will also know how to solve the Jewish problem; will also know how to organize the state well; will also know how to convince other Romanians; and if not, he will know how to win, for that is why he is a hero. This hero, this Legionary of bravery, labour, and justice, with the powers God implanted in his soul, will lead our Fatherland on the road of its glory.

~ Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

I'm so patriotic, I think every British kid should have a chance to grow up to be our head of state.

~ Johann Hari

People who make use of all their senses in trying times are no less patriotic than those whose restraint is lost, whose senses are dimmed and whose brains are washed. This is also the time for the patriot to say: Enough.

~ Gideon Levy

What we call patriotism, in other words, is a calculable force which, released by a predictable situation, will animate man in a manner no different from other territorial species.

~ Robert Ardrey

So long, Lee. Give our regards to the Kaiser. And tell him there's a few boys on 58th Street who'll throw a party for him if he'll drop around.

~ James T. Farrell

Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.

~ James Joyce

I have never understood why one's affections must be confined as once with women to a single country.

~ John Kenneth Galbraith

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

Patriotism is not short frenzied outbursts of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedicaton of a lifetime.

~ Adlai Stevenson

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.

~ Clarence Darrow

A nation is a body of people who have done great things together.

~ Ernest Renan

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.

~ Mark Twain

The French have a passion for revolution but an abhorrence of change.

~ Old Saying

God made the ocean but the Dutch made Holland.

~ Dutch Proverb

The Creator made Italy with designs by Michelangelo.

~ Mark Twain

Men may be linked in friendship. Nations are linked only by interests.

~ Rolf Hochhuth

What makes a nation great is not primarily its great men but the stature of its innumerable mediocre ones.

~ José Ortega Y Gasset

There is Ontario patriotism Quebec patriotism or Western patriotism each based on the hope that it may swallow up the others but there is no Canadian patriotism and we can have no Canadian nation when we have no Canadian patriotism.

~ Henri Bourassa

I'm troubled. I'm dissatisfied. I'm Irish.

~ Marianne Moore

The mind supplies the idea of a nation but what gives this idea its sentimental force is a community of dreams.

~ André Malraux

My favourite example (of ex-patriotism) is James Joyce who left Ireland at nineteen and never came back. But he spent the rest of his life writing about Ireland from the perspective of living in Paris.

~ Karl Beveridge

A nation is a body of people who have done great things together in the past and hope to do great things together in the future.

~ Frank Underhill

The Swiss are not a people so much as a neat clean quite solvent business.

~ William Faulkner

Ireland is a fatal disease fatal to Englishmen and doubly fatal to Irishmen.

~ George Moore

For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.

~ Joseph Brodsky

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.

~ Abraham Lincoln

Unless our conception of patriotism is progressive, it cannot hope to embody the real affection and the real interest of the nation.

~ Jane Addams

I tremble for my country when I hear of confidence expressed in me. I know too well my weakness, that our only hope is in God.

~ Robert E. Lee

I respect and value the ideals of rugged individualism and self-reliance. But rugged individualism didn't defeat the British, it didn't get us to the moon, build our nation's highways, or map the human genome. We did that together. This is the high call of patriotism.

~ Cory Booker

This year, as we celebrate the 230th anniversary of America's independence, please remember the symbols that are sacred to this country. Fly Old Glory high and show your respect and admiration for this great nation and the values we hold dear.

~ Kenny Marchant

When I grew up, I only had two dreams. One was to be a cowboy and another was to be in the military. I grew up extremely patriotic and riding horses.

~ Chris Kyle

The life my grandparents had was thoroughly American. They built a small ranch into a huge operation and fulfilled my great-grandparents' dreams. Theirs was... a simpler time of contentment and patriotism.

~ Dana Perino

It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don't regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn't save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I'm not naive, and I don't romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job.

~ Chris Kyle