#patriotic

I see the clouds which now rise thick and fast upon our horizon, the thunder rolls, and the lightenings play, and to that God who rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm I commit my country. ↗

— Josiah Quincy

#patriotic #inspirational

I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit. ↗

— Theodore Roosevelt

#equality #freedom #independence #individuality #liberty

The essence of America – that which really unites us — is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion – it is an idea — and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things. That it doesn’t matter where you came from but where you are going. ↗

— Condoleezza Rice

#patriotic #speech #inspirational

I wish it were different. I wish that we privileged knowledge in politicians, that the ones who know things didn't have to hide it behind brown pants, and that the know-not-enoughs were laughed all the way to the Maine border on their first New Hampshire meet and greet. I wish that in order to secure his party's nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickinson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichael's "Two Sleepy People," Johnny Cash's "Five Feet High and Rising," and "You Got the Silver" by the Rolling Stones. After all, the United States is the greatest country on earth dealing with the most complicated problems in the history of the world--poverty, pollution, justice, Jerusalem. What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office computer, and one by one decrypt our woes. ↗

— Sarah Vowell

#nerd #nerdiness #nerds #opinion #patriotic

The last time I heard an orthodox Marxist statement that was music to my ears was from a member of the Rwanda Patriotic Front, during the mass slaughter in the country. 'The terms Hutu and Tutsi,' he said severely, 'are merely ideological constructs, describing different relationships to the means and mode of production.' But of course! ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#ideology #marxism #rwanda #rwandan-genocide #rwandan-patriotic-front

I felt that a number of people might have questioned my loyalty, but I continue to be a patriotic American. ↗

— Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#continue #felt #i #loyalty #might

Even now, we make no apologies for the choice we made. The sacrifices we made were selfless. The options we offered were patriotic while the paths we chose were well thought out. ↗

— Ibrahim Babangida

#chose #even #even now #made #make

In these times of the 'Great Recession', we shouldn't be trying to shift the benefits of wealth behind some curtain. We should be celebrating and encouraging people to make as much money as they can. Profits equal tax money. While some people might find it distasteful to pay taxes, I don't. I find it patriotic. ↗

— Mark Cuban

#benefits #celebrating #curtain #distasteful #encouraging

The people currently in charge have forgotten the first principle of an open society, namely that we may be wrong and that there has to be free discussion. That it's possible to be opposed to the policies without being unpatriotic. ↗

— George Soros

#charge #currently #discussion #first #first principle

At midnight on July 1, 1997, Hongkong, the British Crown Colony, will be restored to China. This is not only an event which will be celebrated by patriotic Chinese; any patriotic American should celebrate it as well. ↗

— Robert Trout

#any #british #celebrate #celebrated #china