Samuel Johnson on patriotism

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Sex: the expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.

A second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.

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