Nationalism

"And have they fixed the where, and when? And shall Trelawny die? Here's thirty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why!"

"Strike—for your altars and your fires; Strike—for the green graves of your sires; God—and your native land!"

"He serves his party best who serves the country best."

"And for our country 'tis a bliss to die."

"Our spirit is … to show ourselves eager to work for, and if need be, to die for the Irish Republic. Facing our enemy we must declare an attitude simply…. We ask for no mercy and we will make no compromise."

"I am against any nationalism, even in the guise of mere patriotism. Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and pernicious, as did any exaggerated personality cult."

"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism— how passionately I hate them!"

"Liberté, égalité, fraternité."

"No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots."

"[T]he noblest of human sentiments, now decried by philosophers—the sentiment of patriotism."

"Patriotism means equipped forces and a prepared citizenry. Moral stamina means more energy and more productivity, on the farm and in the factory. Love of liberty means the guarding of every resource that makes freedom possible—from the sanctity of our families and the wealth of our soil to the genius of our scientists."

"United States of the People of America now is stumbling through the darkness of hatred and divisiveness. Our values, our principles, and our determination to succeed as a free and democratic people will give us a torch to light the way. And we will survive and become the stronger—not only because of a patriotism that stands for love of country, but a patriotism that stands for love of people."

"Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. "Patriotism" is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by "patriotism" I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one's own nation, which is the concern with the nation's spiritual as much as with its material welfare—never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship."

"There are two Americas. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power."

"If you think in terms of people divided up into countries, you won't follow me. The idea of countries is going by the boards. Young people are getting wonderfully uprooted and they're too strong to get sucked into this 'country' crap."

"That public virtue, which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest, in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature; honour and religion."

"It should be the work of a genuine and noble patriotism to raise the life of the nation to the level of its privileges; to harmonize its general practice with its abstract principles; to reduce to actual facts the ideals of its institutions; to elevate instruction into knowledge; to deepen knowledge into wisdom; to render knowledge and wisdom complete in righteousness; and to make the love of country perfect in the love of man."

"Patriotism ruins history."

"Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. … Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others."

"We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. Such is the logic of patriotism."

"Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time."

"When we have undermined the patriotic lie, we shall have cleared the path for the great structure where all shall be united into a universal brotherhood — a truly free society."

"Leo Tolstoy … defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers."

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

"The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war."

"The most poverty-stricken patriot in the East End of London is apt to swell out his chest when he thinks of England’s industry and wealth, for is not England’s wealth his?"

"'Twas for the good of my country that I should be abroad. Anything for the good of one's country—I'm a Roman for that."

"And bold and hard adventures t' undertake, Leaving his country for his country's sake."

"[T]he principle of patriotism, which is the soul of free communities."

"Befitting acts are all those which reason prevails with us to do; and this is the case with honouring one's parents, brothers and country, and intercourse with friends. Unbefitting, or contrary to duty, are all acts that reason deprecates, e.g. to neglect one's parents, to be indifferent to one's brothers, not to agree with friends, to disregard the interests of one's country, and so forth."

"Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong."

"Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it."

"The propaganda of prejudice and hatred which sought to keep the colored men from supporting the national cause completely failed. The black man showed himself the same kind of citizen, moved by the same kind of patriotism, as the white man. They were tempted, but not one betrayed his country. Among well-nigh 400,000 colored men who were taken into the military service, about one-half had overseas experience. They came home with many decorations and their conduct repeatedly won high commendation from both American and European commanders."

"I hope to find my country in the right: however I will stand by her, right or wrong."

"I wish I was in de land ob cotton, Ole times dar am not forgotten, Look-a-way! Look-a-way! Look-a-way, Dixie Land! * * * * * Den I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray! Hooray! In Dixie Land I'll take my stand To lib and die in Dixie."

"Our country is the world—our countrymen are all mankind."

"The Nation has need of all that can be contributed to it through the best efforts of all its citizens. The colored people have repeatedly proved their devotion to the high ideals of our country. They gave their services in the war with the same patriotism and readiness that other citizens did. The records of the selective draft show that somewhat more than 2,250,000 colored men were registered. The records further prove that, far from seeking to avoid participation in the national defense, they showed that they wished to enlist before the selective service act was put into operation, and they did not attempt to evade that act afterwards."

"My education was built up upon ruthlessly hard-and-fast ideas crowned by a patriotism that nothing could shake. In the insurrection of Vendée, allied with the foreigner against Revolutionary France, the two qualities of patriot and republican were so merged in one another that the Ghouans called us patauds, an insult that my forbears were proud of. The fatherland was, and could only be, everybody's home, where energies were developed in common. To renounce one's country had neither sense nor meaning. You might as well have expected the child to want to leave the shelter of its mother's wing. The home, the country, this was no theory; it was a natural phenomenon that had been realized from the very earliest ages of mankind. Animals had a temporary home in their lairs, man a permanent one in his country."

"We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag and I keep step to the music of the Union."

"[W]hen with a rational spirit you have surveyed the whole field, there is no social relation among them all more close, none more dear than that which links each one of us with our country. Parents are dear; dear are children, relatives, friends; but one native land embraces all our loves; and who that is true would hesitate to give his life for her, if by his death he could render her a service? So much the more execrable are those monsters who have torn their fatherland to pieces with every form of outrage and who are and have been engaged in compassing her utter destruction."

"When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home."

"I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred toward any one."

"Patria est communis omnium parens."

"“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”."

"But this I would say, standing as I do in the view of God and Eternity — I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no bitterness or hatred towards anyone."

"Again to the battle, Achaians! Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance! Our land, the first garden of liberty's tree— It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free."

"The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!"

"If modern youth has realized, as I believe it has, that to live for one's country is a finer type of patriotism than to die for it, then the youth of my generation will not, after all, have laid down the best of its life in vain."

"Be Briton still to Britain true, Among oursel's united; For never but by British hands Maun British wrangs be righted."

"God save our gracious king, Long live our noble king, God save the king."