Top 100 Patriotism Quotes of All Time

A short, finished list rather than an endless feed: 100 of the best patriotism quotes ever written, picked out of the full patriotism archive on QuoteForever. You will find Mahatma Gandhi, Michael Ignatieff, Thomas Jefferson and Bill Maher among them.

Read the list top to bottom, or use it as a starting point - every author name links to everything else they said, and every quote has its own page you can share or turn into an image.

1

I suppose I have become a sort of living monument in Portugal. But I come from a family with roots all over the world, so the idea of patriotism is not very strong in me. My country is the country of Chekhov, Beethoven, Velasquez - writers I like, painters and artists I admire.

2

To me a real patriot is like a real friend. Who's your real friend? It's the person who tells you the truth. That's who my real friends are. So, you know, I think as far as our country goes, we need more people who will do that.

3

I do think the patriotic thing to do is to critique my country. How else do you make a country better but by pointing out its flaws?

4

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.

5

We live in a time of conflict - external and internal - when we sometimes concentrate too much on what divides us. Today, fly the Stars and Stripes with pride and confidence that what unites is far stronger.

6

Let's get rid of all the economic (expletive) this country represents! Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win!

7

The Pentagon as a legitimate target? I actually don't have an opinion on that and it's important I not have an opinion on that as I sit here in my capacity right now.

8

The most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.

9

Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards any one.

10

Across the country military families are facing dire financial circumstances due to longer than expected tours of duties. They are being penalized for their patriotism - no one should have to choose between doing right by their country and doing right by their families.

11

Patriotism was a living fire of unquestioned belief and purpose.

12

Patriots don't let their nation default.

13

You cannot deny your origins: I love Kirchner more than Matisse, although Matisse was a greater artist. That isn't to do with nationality. It's a stronger feeling.

14

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.

15

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.

16

However British you may be, I am more British still.

17

Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. When you're willing to stand up within the group and say, 'It is wrong for Black people to be anti-Semitic,' or 'It is wrong for America to discriminate against persons of African descent and made them slaves and based its wealth upon free labor,' it's crucial to say that.

18

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag, but the nation itself.

19

It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me.

20

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

21

There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.

22

I expected to die. At no time before the trial did I expect to escape with my life. Yet being executed in the gas chamber did not necessarily mean defeat. It could be one more step to bring the community to a higher level of consciousness.

23

[On the House Un-American Activities Committee] They'll nail anyone who ever scratched his ass during the National Anthem.

24

How is it that this debate has been twisted on its head, that somehow those that advocate peace and diplomacy are anti-American?

25

Jews have had to carry around their own sense of self in a carpet bag and I think perhaps too much emphasis might be being put on nationality and on the other hand patriotism, that sort of thing.

26

I am willing to serve my country, but do not wish to sacrifice the brave men under my command.

27

Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.

28

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

29

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.

30

My films are always concerned with family, friendship, honor, and patriotism.

31

Patriotism is a passion which induces hot youth to rush forth to get shot and half shot, while sober, conservative age waves the flag and corrals the contracts.

32

The flavor of patriotism depends upon its habitat.

33

Religion, morality, and patriotism are feelings that are manifested only when they are outraged.

34

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish enthrallment to those in power.

35

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

36

What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?

37

The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism; of credit, not honor; of individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle.

38

Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.

39

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

40

True morality consists not in following the beaten track, but in finding the true path for ourselves, and fearlessly following it.

41

My commitment to the Republican movement was pure and simply patriotism, a love of Australia... a desire or passion that all of our national symbols should be unequivocally and unambiguously Australian.

42

Our national motto is 'In God we Trust,' reminding us that faith in our Creator is the most important American value of all.

43

My love for my country is my religion.

44

I want to caution that we must not confuse patriotism with blind endorsement of bad policies.

45

Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest.

46

Talking of patriotism, what humbug it is; it is a word which always commemorates a robbery.

47

"I criticize America because I love her. I want her to stand as a moral example to the world."

48

Patriotism is one of the unalterable facts of man's nature. It is a virtue if you like it, and a vice if you don't like it.

49

Patriotism is the secret resource of a successful society.

50

Patriotism is strong nationalistic feeling for a country whose borders and whose legitimacy and whose ethnic composition is taken for granted.

51

I distinguish, between nationalism and patriotism.

52

The values, the programs, the formula, the determination, and the patriotism responsible for America's past success are still here to be tapped.

53

Patriotism is an instant reaction that fades away when the war starts.

54

Although the war in which you fought took place more than half-a-century ago, your courage, your sacrifice and your patriotism reaches through the decades and inspires us today.

55

Sovereignty and the right to rule cannot be conferred on anyone no matter who ... as a result of an academic discussion. Sovereignty is acquired by force and power and violence.

56

Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!

57

The fight for freedom must go on until it is won; until our country is free and happy and peaceful as part of the community of man, we cannot rest.

58

I think the reaction to a World War II situation would be the same today as it was in 1942. Initially, people would question, but once patriotism got stirred up, the whole thing would gather momentum and we'd all pull together.

59

Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace! – but there is no peace.

60

If one's patriotism is merely instinctive it is irrational and irresponsible, and consequently a danger to one's country.

61

To survive in peace and harmony, united and strong, we must have one people, one nation, one flag.

62

Yes, I'm a patriotic person. For these people who disgrace the American way and burn our flag and do all of these things... I say, don't live here and disgrace my country. Go live in the Middle East and see how you like it.

63

It is our conduct, our patriotism and belief in our American way of life, our courage that will win the final battle.

64

True patriotism doesn't exclude an understanding of the patriotism of others.

65

Politics is too partisan, and sometimes patriotism is cast aside. Patriotism is honor and love of your country and your brothers and sisters. With politics I get the impression that it's all about what's good for the party and not necessarily what's good for the country.

66

America beats on you so hard the whole time. You are constantly being pummeled by other people's rights and their sense of patriotism.

67

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

68

"Every national border in Europe," El Eswad added ironically, "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."

69

I tremble for my country when I hear of confidence expressed in me. I know too well my weakness, that our only hope is in God.

70

True patriotism is not worship of our nation but rather, in the light of our worship of the God of justice, to conform our nation's ways of justice.

71

Patriotism is not endlessly bragging that out country is the best; rather it is wanting one's country to be the best that it can be and helping it to be that best, which is a very different matter.

72

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

73

The very idea of true patriotism is lost, and the term has been prostituted to the very worst of purposes. A patriot, sir! Why, patriots spring up like mushrooms!

74

Gentlemen have talked a great deal of patriotism. A venerable word, when duly practiced.

75

I have no sense of nationalism, only a cosmic consciousness of belonging to the human family.

76

Our hearts where they rocked our cradle, Our love where we spent our toil, And our faith, and our hope, and our honor, We pledge to our native soil. God gave all men all earth to love, But since our hearts are small, Ordained for each one spot should prove Beloved over all.

77

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

78

We're being sold a brand new idea of patriotism. It never occurred to me that patriotism had to be advertised. Patriotism is something you deeply felt. You didn't have to wear it on your lapel or show it in your window or on a bumper sticker. That kind of patriotism does not appeal to me at all.

79

One, if you attack my integrity, I will defend myself. If you attack my patriotism, I will defend myself. If you come after my family, I will counter-attack viciously, I will destroy you.

80

To preserve the life of citizens, is the greatest virtue in the father of his country.

81

The soldier does not wish to appear a coward, disloyal, or un-American. The situation has been so defined that he can see himself as patriotic, courageous, and manly only through compliance.

82

My country, right or wrong, but still my country.

83

The patriot volunteer, fighting for country and his rights, makes the most reliable soldier on earth.

84

The history of American patriotism is figuring out ways that we can work together to move forward and knit together the common government.

85

Let us form one body, one heart, and defend to the last warrior our country, our homes, our liberty, and the graves of our fathers.

86

On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

87

My affections were first for my own country, then, generally, for all mankind

88

It is Mortifying to suppose it possible that a people able and zealous to contend with the Enemy should be reduced to fold their Arms for want of the means of defence; yet no resources that we know of, ensure us against this event.

89

I die content, I die for the liberty of my country.

90

Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.

91

Some versions of patriotism come close to the tribal, which we all want to surpass, and some don’t.

92

There is a fuzzy but real distinction that can and I believe should be made, between patriotism, which is attachment to a way of life, and nationalism, which is the insistence that your way of life deserves to rule over other ways of life.

93

We shall always be a small minority in the world, but, when a small nation accomplishes something with its limited means, what it achieves has an immense and exceptional value, like the widow's mite. It is a deliberate and discerning love of a nation that appeals to me, not the indiscriminate love that assumes everything to be right because it bears a national label. Love of one's own nation should not entail non-love of other nations. Institutions by themselves are not enough.

94

If military movies were automatically successful we'd make nothing but military movies. But seriously, patriotism is one thing that all Americans have in common.

95

You do not become a ''dissident'' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.

96

Unfortunately, our history has abundant examples of patriotism being used to hurt those who express views in disagreement with that of the majority.

97

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

98

Patriotism takes the place of religion in France. In the service of la patrie, the doing of one's duty is elevated into the sphere of exalted emotion.

99

Patriotism is considered to be an emotion a person ought to feel. But why? Why is it nobler to love your own country than to love someone else's?

100

My country has been very good to me; I must be good to my country.

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