Ulysses S. Grant

If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason & Dixon … but between patriotism & intelligence on the one side & superstition, ambition & ignorance on the other.

Grant could see it.

Howard Zinn, Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1991)

If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, nor as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles.

New York City Mayor John Lindsay at Columbia University (October 1969)

We cannot rest content with the charge from Washington that this peaceful protest is unpatriotic... The fact is that this dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

The Use of Force in International Affairs (1961 Publication)

If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?

Howard Zinn (2002)

While some people think that dissent is unpatriotic, I would argue that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. In fact, if patriotism means being true to the principles for which your country is supposed to stand, then certainly the right to dissent is one of those principles. And if we're exercising that right to dissent, it's a patriotic act.

Thomas Jefferson

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.

John Stuart Mill

The worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men.

Ronald Reagan

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.

Mark Twain

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

Malcolm X

You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or who says it.

Thomas Jefferson

Its soul, its climate, its equality, liberty, laws, people, and manners. My God! how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

Colin Powell

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in.