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I distinguish, between nationalism and patriotism.
Sep 29, 2025
Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
Patriotism is an instant reaction that fades away when the war starts.
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.
It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.
It's only important to differentiate between patriotism and nationalism. I speak of enlightened patriotism.
My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders.
Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.
To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.
It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest', but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.
This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!
Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.
The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world.
Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man - with his mouth.
The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.
Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.
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.
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.
There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
Safety is the last refuge of the scoundrel!
Public office is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Patriotism is the last refuge of the sculptor.
One of the great attractions of patriotism
All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers.
Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
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.
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.
Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism... 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.
You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man.
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.
Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.
True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.
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.
Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity.
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.
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.
My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
Men love their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own.