Rudyard Kipling on patriotism

I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.

The highest form of wisdom is to get drunk and go to pieces.

Every woman knows all about everything.

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