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Patriotism has served, at different times, as widely different ends as a razor, which ought to be used to keep your face clean and yet may be used to cut your own throat or that of some more innocent person.

— Charles Edward Montague The Right Place (1924)

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Patriotism

More quotes by Charles Edward Montague

Civilization itself, the at any rate habitable dwelling which was to be shored up by the war, wears a strange new air of precariousness.

Disenchantment (1922)

War hath no fury like a non-combatant.

Disenchantment (1922)

Nothing in language is immutably fixed: the best writers are constantly changing it. Absolute government by dictionary would mean the arrest of this healthy process of change and growth.

The true delight of travel, the one that is going to print itself unaccountably and indelibly on you, seems to prefer to come as a thief in the night, and not at the hours you specially fix for its entertainment.

The Right Place (1924)

We are all heirs to the loveliness of the visible world; but only by process of art can we be inducted into possession of this large estate. Some authentic poet or artist has to intervene and give the property its rights and empower it to attain perfection in our sight.

A Writer's Notes on his Trade (1930)

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I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

Nathan Hale

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.

Arthur C. Clarke The Exploration of Space (1951)

Our country – In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, and always successful, right or wrong.

Stephen Decatur

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

Barbara Ehrenreich

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Edward Montague (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.