Patriotism

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
~ George Bernard Shaw

A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
~ George William Curtis

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

When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Patriotism is a menace to liberty.
~ Emma Goldman

During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.
~ Howard Thurman

Maybe that’s enough to make patriotism eligible to be considered a virtue. If only I could get out of my mind the most patriotic people who ever lived, the Nazi Germans.
~ Andy Rooney

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.
~ Alexander Hamilton

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
~ Voltaire

“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.”
~ GK Chesterton

I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.
~ Albert Camus

In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.
~ Eugene Victor Debs

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

It’s not unpatriotic to denounce an injustice committed on our behalf, perhaps it’s the most patriotic thing we can do.
~ EA Bucchianeri

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

How does one hate a country, or love one?… I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is the love of one’s country; is it hate of one’s uncountry? Then it’s not a good thing.
~ Ursula K Le Guin

Identification with the rag called the national flag is an emotional and sentimental factor and for that factor you are willing to kill another - and that is called, the love of your country, love of the neighbor…? One can see that where sentiment and emotion come in, love is not.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

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.
~ HL Mencken

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
~ EM Forster

You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.
~ Malcolm X

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
~ Oscar Wilde

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonourably, foolishly, viciously.
~ Julian Barnes

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

You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
~ George Bernard Shaw

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

The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?
~ Pablo Casals

Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.
~ James Bryce

Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.
~ Arundhati Roy

Force, violence, pressure, or compulsion with a view to conformity, are both uncivilized and undemocratic.
~ MK Gandhi

I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will not allow patriotism to triumph over humanity.
~ Rabindranath Tagore

The idea of the Nation is one of the most powerful anaesthetics that Man has invented. Under the influence of its fumes the whole people can carry out its systematic programme of the most virulent self-seeking without being in the least aware of its moral perversion - in fact feeling dangerously resentful if it is pointed out.
~ Rabindranath Tagore

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.
~ George Orwell

Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. 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 nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those 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.
~ Emma Goldman

Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former for the sake of the latter. Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times more than ever calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that “if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom!” It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers in the event!
~ Samuel Adams

Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.
~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

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.
~ Erich Fromm

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.
~ J William Fulbright

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.
~ Emma Goldman

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.
~ Emma Goldman

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government’s ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish submission to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery.
~ Leo Tolstoy

Patriotism is the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers.
~ Leo Tolstoy

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.
~ Leo Tolstoy

I have already several times expressed the thought that in our day the feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering, and that, consequently, this feeling – should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men. Yet, strange to say – though it is undeniable that the universal armaments and destructive wars which are ruining the peoples result from that one feeling – all my arguments showing the backwardness, anachronism, and harmfulness of patriotism have been met, and are still met, either by silence, by intentional misinterpretation, or by a strange unvarying reply to the effect that only bad patriotism (Jingoism or Chauvinism) is evil, but that real good patriotism is a very elevated moral feeling, to condemn which is not only irrational but wicked. What this real, good patriotism consists in, we are never told; or, if anything is said about it, instead of explanation we get declamatory, inflated phrases, or, finally, some other conception is substituted for patriotism – something which has nothing in common with the patriotism we all know, and from the results of which we all suffer so severely.
~ Leo Tolstoy

The ethnic nationalist who wants a linguistically and culturally uniform nation is akin to the racist who is intolerant toward those who look (and behave) differently. The patriot is a “diversitarian”; he is pleased, indeed proud of the variety within the borders of his country; he looks for loyalty from all citizens. And he looks up and down, not left and right.
~ Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

A great many people really care very little for their own compatriots, but they hate anything foreign.
~ Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk

I have no patriotism, for patriotism, as I see it, is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.
~ George Jean Nathan

By “nationalism” … I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.
~ George Orwell

[Patriotism is the] willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
~ Bertrand Russell

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.
~ George Santayana

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice — and always has been.
~ Mark Twain

Every national border in Europe marks the place where two gangs of bandits got too exhausted to kill each other anymore and signed a treaty. Patriotism is the delusion that one of these gangs of bandits is better than all the others.
~ El Eswad (as quoted by Robert Anton Wilson)

If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, nor as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles.
~ Howard Zinn

Our country, right or wrong! When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right!
~ Carl Schurz

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
~ Albert Einstein

Nationalism was so perfectly suited to its double task, the domestication of workers and the despoliation of aliens, that it appealed to everyone - everyone, that is, who wielded or aspired to wield a portion of capital.
~ Fredy Perlman

Individuality is a far more important thing than nationality,and in any given man deserves a thousand-fold more consideration. And since you cannot speak of national character without referring to large numbers of people, it is impossible to be both loud in your praises and honest. National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. If we become disgusted with one, we praise another, until we get disgusted with this one too. Every nation mocks at other nations, and they are all right.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer

What are the phenomena of nationalism? Here are some of them: 1) National egoism, from which many other negative traits of nationalism are derived, as for example — a desire for foreign conquest, a desire to oppress other nations, a desire to impose economic exploitation upon other nations, and so on; 2) national-chauvinism which is also a source of many other negative traits of nationalism, as for example national hatred, the disparagement of other nations, the disparagement of their history, culture, and scientific activities and scientific achievements, and so on, the glorification of developments in their own history that were negative and which from our Marxist point of view are considered negative.
~ Josip Broz Tito

India is a peculiar country and her nationalists and patriots are a peculiar people. A patriot and a nationalist in India is one who sees with open eyes his fellow men treated as being less than man. But his humanity does not rise in protest. He knows that men and women for no cause are denied their rights. But it does not prick his civil sense of helpful action. He finds a whole class of people shut out from public employment. But it does not rouse his sense of justice and fair play. Hundreds of evil practices that injure man and society are perceived by him. But they do not sicken him with disgust. The patriot’s one cry is power for him and his class. I am glad I do not belong to that class of patriots. I belong to that class which takes its stand on democracy and which seeks to destroy monopoly in every form. Our aim is to realise in practice our ideal of one man one value in all walks of life – political, economical and social.
~ BR Ambedkar

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And from stand-up.

I was over in Australia, and I was asked, “Are you proud to be an American?” And I was like, “Um, I don't know, I didn’t have a lot to do with it. You know, my parents fucked there, that’s about all. You know, I was in the spirit realm at that time. ‘Fuck in Paris! Fuck in Paris!’ but they couldn’t hear me, cos I didn’t have a mouth. I was a spirit without lungs or mouth or vocal cords.” They fucked here. OK, I’m proud. I hate patriotism. I can’t stand it, man. Makes me fuckin’ sick. It’s a round world last time I checked, OK? You know what I mean. I hate patriotism. In fact, that’s how we could stop patriotism, I think. Instead of putting stars and stripes on our flags, we should put pictures of our parents fucking. [Audio here.]
~ Bill Hicks

Nationalism does nothing but teach you how to hate people that you never met. And all of a sudden you take pride in accomplishments you had no part in whatsoever, and you brag about - and the Americans’ll go “Fuck the French! Fuck the French, if we hadn't had saved their ass in two world wars, they’d be speakin’ German right now!” And you go, “Oh, was that us?” Was that me and you, Tommy, we saved the French? Jesus! I know I blacked out a little bit after that fourth shot of Jägermeister last night, but I don’t remember… I know we went through the Wendy’s drive-thru to get one of them Freschetta sandwiches that looked so alluring on the commercial, but then we ordered it and realized we had no money, and we had to ditch out before the second window, and those douchebags in line behind us with the bass music probably got our order and we laughed about that. But I don’t remember savin’ the French. At all! I went through the last ten calls on my cell phone and there’s nothin’ incoming or outgoing to the French, lookin’ for muscle on a project! I checked my pants, there’s no mud stains on the knees from where we were garroting krauts in the trenches at Verdun. I think we didn’t do anything but watch sports bloopers while we got hammered. I think we should shut the fuck up! [Video here.]
~ Doug Stanhope

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I could never understand ethnic or national pride. Because to me, pride should be reserved for something you achieve or attain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being Irish isn't a skill, it’s a fuckin’ genetic accident. You wouldn’t say “l’m proud to be 5’11,” “I'm proud to have a predisposition for colon cancer.” So why the fuck would you be proud to be Irish, or proud to be Italian, or American, or anything?
~ George Carlin

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