"We, this nation, have a right, because we are such, to formulate and follow the standards by which we will judge the worth of what we do and of what others offer to us and expect from us... The breath which condemns submission to laws this nation has not made condemns submission to scales of value which this nation has not willed. To both sorts of submission I ascribe that haunting fear, which I am sure I am not alone in feeling, that we, the British will soon have nothing left to die for. That was not a slip of the tongue. What a man lives for is what a man dies for, because every bit of living is a bit of dying. At the beginning I refused to define patriotism; but now at the end I venture it. Patriotism is to have a nation to die for, and to be glad to die for it—all the days of one's life."
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Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomPolitical leadersPoets from EnglandPeople from BirminghamAnglicans from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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Sources
'Patriotism', sermon to the St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London (18 January 1977), quoted in Wrestling with the Angel (1977), p. 8
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell
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Enoch Powell
politician, linguist, poet
1912 – 1998 · United Kingdom
John Enoch Powell (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974), then Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MP (1974–1987), and was Minister of Health (1960–1963).
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