#patriot

The average American is nothing if not patriotic. ↗

— Herbert Croly

#american #average #average american #nothing #patriotic

The higher American patriotism, on the other hand, combines loyalty to historical tradition and precedent with the imaginative projection of an ideal national Promise. ↗

— Herbert Croly

#combines #hand #higher #historical #ideal

I'm an advocate of the great Dr. Johnson, the English man of letters who said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. ↗

— George Galloway

#advocate #dr #english #great #i

The war, as I felt it and a lot of my compatriots felt it, was a creative act. ↗

— Lawrence Halprin

#compatriots #creative #creative act #felt #i

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#from time to time #liberty #must #patriots #refreshed

One question in my mind, which I hardly dare mention in public, is whether patriotism has, overall, been a force for good or evil in the world. Patriotism is rampant in war and there are some good things about it. Just as self-respect and pride bring out the best in an individual, pride in family, pride in teammates, pride in hometown bring out the best in groups of people. War brings out the kind of pride in country that encourages its citizens in the direction of excellence and it encourages them to be ready to die for it. At no time do people work so well together to achieve the same goal as they do in wartime. 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

#nazi #patriotism #pride #virtue #war

I certainly didn't concur with Edward on everything, but I was damned if I would hear him abused without saying a word. And I think this may be worth setting down, because there are other allegiances that can be stress-tested in comparable ways. It used to be a slight hallmark of being English or British that one didn't make a big thing out of patriotic allegiance, and was indeed brimful of sarcastic and critical remarks about the old country, but would pull oneself together and say a word or two if it was attacked or criticized in any nasty or stupid manner by anybody else. It's family, in other words, and friends are family to me. I feel rather the same way about being an American, and also about being of partly Jewish descent. To be any one of these things is to be no better than anyone else, but no worse. When confronted by certain enemies, it is increasingly the 'most definitely no worse' half of this unspoken agreement on which I tend to lay the emphasis. (As with Camus’s famous 'neither victim nor executioner,' one hastens to assent but more and more to say 'definitely not victim.') ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#britain #britishness #camus #edward-said #family

I have never been afraid of making patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts. ↗

— Robert Walpole

#been #despise #disdain #efforts #i

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. ↗

— Thomas Paine

#inspirational #patriotic #value #freedom

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. ↗

— Edward Abbey

#always #country #defend #government #his