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I would throw out the old maxim, ‘My country, right or wrong,’ etc., and instead I would say, ‘My country when she is right.’ Because patriotism is supporting your country all the time, but your government only when it deserves it.

— Mark Twain Address to the Male Teachers Association of the City of New York (1901)

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Patriotism

More quotes by Mark Twain

Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

Biographies are but clothes and buttons of the man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written.

Mark Twain's Autobiography (1924)

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

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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.

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

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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: Mark Twain (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.