A reader of this site, Mike Baker, provided me with a big stash of thoughtful quotes. Included in Mike's offerings is this collection of quotes on "patriotism." A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. ~ Edward Abbey The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? ~Pablo Casals "My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober." ~ G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936) "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else." ~ Clarence S. Darrow "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." ~ Albert Einstein Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. ~ Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. ~ Guy de Maupassant 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? ~ Blaise Pascal Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph: ~ Haile Selassie Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. ~ George Bernard Shaw "My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders." ~Mark Twain It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. ~ Voltaire

I collect quotes and share them at this site. If you'd like to see quote a few more, search under the category called "Quotes" (this function is located in the left column). The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. -Samuel Johnson You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. -Winston Churchill The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. -Winston Churchill If you’re going through hell, keep going. - Winston Churchill We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us. - George Eliot (1819 - 1880) It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. - Alfred Adler Be the change you wish to see in the world. – Gandhi An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions. - Robert A. Humphrey Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. - Albert Camus It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. - F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up" (1936) The electric meat -- that's us! I don't mind that at all. If anything, it's even more awe-inspiring to think that out of physics and chemistry we're able to get consciousness and thought, and you and I can sit here and have a conversation about electric meat and chemistry. That itself is miraculous. Michael Shermer (2006)

As I've often written, I love quotes. Ever since I was a pre-teen. Mini-explosions in small strings of words. A novel in a single sentence! I collect lots of quotes and I occasionally publish my favorites in small groups on this website. If you want to see other batches, simply choose the (left side margin) "category" called "quotes." I hope you find these fun, challenging, mind-stretching and sometimes disturbing . . . Confusion is always the most honest response. -Marty Indik A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child. -Mencken Our quaint metaphysical opinions, in an hour of anguish, are like playthings by the bedside of a child deathly sick. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge A cult is a religion with no political power. -Tom Wolfe Conceit is God's gift to little men. -Bruce Barton Great persecutors are recruited among martyrs whose heads haven't been cut off. -E. M. Cioran Universities are of course hostile to geniuses, which, seeing and using ways of their own, discredit the routine: as churches and monasteries persecute youthful saints. -Ralph Waldo Emerson One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny. -Bertrand Russell Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors. -Francious de la Rochefoucauld Satire is often the reflection of a kind of moral nausea. -Crand Briton The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding. -Bacon Truth: An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. -Bierce I'm worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they're doing. I'm concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that's handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers. -Howard Zinn Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy. -Franz Kafka Sentimentality is a superstructure covering brutality. -C. J. Jung People travel for the same reason as they collect works of art: because the best people do it. -Aldous Huxley [more . . . ]