“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
A“Patriotism is in political life what faith is in religion.”
“A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation’s flag, sees not the flag only, but the nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the nation that sets it forth.”
“There is in most Americans some spark of idealism, which can be fanned into a flame. It takes sometimes a divining rod to find what it is; but when found, and that means often, when disclosed to the owners, the results are often most extraordinary.”
“They believe that America will run from a challenge. They're mistaken. Americans are not the running kind.”
“…we live in the greatest country on the face of the earth. We are great because we are strong, and we’re great because we are compassionate. … The values we stand for are wholesome and so necessary in so many parts of the world. I’m incredibly proud of this country.”
“Patriotism is easy to understand in America; it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.”
“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.”
“This will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.”
“Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”
“Patriotism… applies to true love of one’s country and a code of conduct that echoes such love.”
“We would rather starve than sell our national honor.”
“I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor provisions; I offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country in his heart, and not with his lips only, follow me.”
“America, the land of unlimited possibilities.”
“The United States is like a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.”
“Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea.”
“Behind all these men you have to do with, behind officers, and government, and people even, there is the country herself, your country, and… you belong to her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by her, boy, as you would stand by your mother.”
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
“Who saves his country, saves himself, saves all things, and all things saved do bless him! Who lets his country die, lets all things die, dies himself ignobly, and all things dying curse him!”
“My country owes me nothing. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope.”
“It is a sweet and seemly thing to die for one’s country.”
“I think patriotism is like charity—it begins at home.”
“If I were to live my life over again, I would be an American. I would steep myself in America, I would know no other land.”
“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
“…ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
“True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly contrary, at one period, to that which it does at another, and the motive which impels them—the desire to do right—is precisely the same.”
“Let us have done with British-Americans and Irish-Americans and German-Americans, and so on, and all be Americans. … If a man is going to be an American at all let him be so without any qualifying adjectives; and if he is going to be something else, let him drop the word American from his personal description.”
“The world of the 20th Century, if it is to come to life in any nobility of health and vigor, must be to a significant degree an American Century.”
“Americans never quit.”
“National honor is national property of the highest value.”
“America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.”
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
“If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on earth.”
“There is nothing wrong with America that together we can’t fix.”
“Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood—the virtues that made America. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”
“There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100% Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.”
“There’s no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. … The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.”
“Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.”
“What then is the American, this new man? He is either an European, or a descendant of an European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. … Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.”
“There is the National flag. He must be cold, indeed, who can look upon its folds rippling in the breeze without pride of country. If in a foreign land, the flag is companionship, and country itself, with all its endearments.”
“The American people taken in main is not only the most enlightened in the world, but—which I put much higher than that advantage—is the one whose practical political education is the most advanced.”
“Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.”
“The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.”
“The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.”
“The business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of America is justice, and securing the blessings of liberty.”
“There are a great many hyphens left in America. For my part, I think the most un-American thing in the world is a hyphen. [of refugees’ names]