Ambrose Bierce [19060: “Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone 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 that it is the first.”
John Brockenbrough {1807]: “Patriotism is a mighty precious thing when it costs nothing, but the mass of mankind consider it a very foolish thing when it curtails their self-indulgence.”
Henry S. Commager [1954]: “Who are the really disloyal? Those who inflame racial hatreds who sow religious and class dissensions. Those who subvert the Constitution by violating the freedom of the ballot box. Those who make a mockery of majority rule by the use of the filibuster. Those who impair democracy by denying equal educational facilities. Those who frustrate justice by lynch law or by making a farce of jury trials. Those who deny freedom of speech and of press and assembly. Those who demand special favors against the commonwealth. Those who regard public office merely as a source of private gain. Those who would exalt the military over the civilian. Those who for selfish and private purposes stir up national antagonisms and expose the world to the ruin of war.”
Helen Gahagan Douglas {1982]: “You can’t prove you’re an American by waving Old Glory.”
Albert Einstein [19210: “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
Robert G. Ingersoll [1882]: “He loves his country best who strives to make it best.”
George Jean Nathan [1931]: “Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.”
Carl Schurz [1872]: “Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.”
Benjamin Spock[1968]: “I feel that this do-or-die, my-country-right-or-wrong kind of patriotism is not merely out of place in a nuclear armed world, it is criminal egotism on a monstrous scale. The world won’t be safe until people in all countries recognize it for what it is and, instead of cheering the leader who talks that way, impeach him.”
Adlai Stevenson [1952]: “I venture to suggest that patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.”
E. B. White [1947]: “The principle of demanding an expression of political conformity as the price of a job is the principle of hundred percentism. It is not new and it is the blood brother of witch burning.”
With Justice For All 