Patriotic Quotations | Page 7

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men.

When I think of the gold-diggers and the Mormons, the slaves and the slave-holders and the flibustiers, I naturally dream of a glorious private life. No, I am not patriotic.

Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.

What we need are critical lovers of America - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it.

We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit.

A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and truth in front of patriotic passion.

Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first best country ever is at home.

I had the patriotic conviction that, given great leadership of the sort I heard from Winston Churchill in the radio broadcasts to which we listened, there was almost nothing that the British people could not do.

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.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal

There is a homely old adage which runs: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.

Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation.

It is necessary for the welfare of the nation that men's lives be based on the principles of the Bible. No man, educated or uneducated, can afford to be ignorant of the Bible.

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.

The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.

Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave?

Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I'm not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be.

We must recognize the fundamental rights of man. There can be no true national life in our democracy unless we give unqualified recognition to freedom of religious worship and freedom of education.

The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic - have always blown on free men.

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.

First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

For me patriotism is the sme as humanity. I am patriotic because I am human and humane. It is not exclusive. I will not hurt England or Germany to serve India . . . My patriotism is inclusive and admits of no enmity or ill-will.

We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!

The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.

Who saves his country violates no law.

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself

There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.

There is no patriotic art.

It is the excitement of becoming - always becoming, trying, probing, falling, resting, and trying again- but always trying and always gaining

We preach the virtues of democracy abroad. We must practice its duties here at home. Voting is the first duty of democracy.

For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground.

We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.

You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right.

The patriotic spirit demands loyal and strict adherence to nonviolence and truth.

In the beginning, all the world was America.

I know there is a God - I see the storm coming and I see his hand in it - if he has a place then I am ready - we see the hand.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.

The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

In our day the feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering, and that, consequently, this feeling - should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men.

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them, which by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul, awaken the spirits to a dance of breathless rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved singing to you alone.

Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

The Jews believed Jerusalem to be the centre. I have seen a kratometric chart designed to show that the city of Philadelphia was in the same thermic belt, and, by inference, in the same belt of empire, as the cities of Athens, Rome, and London. It was drawn by a patriotic Philadelphian, and was examined with pleasure, under his showing, by the inhabitants of Chestnut Street. But, when carried to Charleston, to New Orleans, and to Boston, it somehow failed to convince the ingenious scholars of all those capitals.

Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.

For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?

Nations have lost their old omnipotence; the patriotic tiedoes not hold. Nations are getting obsolete, we go and live where we will.

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American.

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.

The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

My heart trembles when I reflect that God is just

I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.

In a chariot of light from the region of the day, the Goddess of Liberty came. She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love, the plant she named Liberty Tree.

Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS...

If you have a right to respect, that means other people don't have a right to their own opinions.

Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest.

A man who has never lost himself in a cause bigger than himself has missed one of life's mountaintop experiences. Only in losing himself does he find himself. Only then does he discover all the latent strengths he never knew he had and which otherwise would have remained dormant.

For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all of the people on this earth are truly one. One in their pride at what you have done, one in our prayers that you will return safely to earth.

By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of the healing.

I couldn't help but say to [Mr. Gorbachev], just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. [We'd] find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together.

People don't start wars, governments do.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

Americans are hungering to feel proud and patriotic again.

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

Government should uphold-and not undermine-those institutions which are custodians of the very values upon which civilization is founded: religion, education and, above all, family.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!