Edmund Burke on patriotism

All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

Ask not what your country can do for you⁠—ask what you can do for your country.

John F. Kennedy1917–1963John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address (1961)

‘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. Chesterton1874–1936The Defendant (1901), “A Defence of Patriotism”

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

Oscar Wilde1854–1900