Alexander Pope on patriotism

How happy is the blameless Vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.

To err is human, to forgive divine.

Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.

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