Our native land charms us with inexpressible sweetness, and never
never allows us to forget that we belong to read more

Our native land charms us with inexpressible sweetness, and never
never allows us to forget that we belong to it.
[Lat., Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine captos
Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui.]

He serves me most who serves his country best.

He serves me most who serves his country best.

One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we read more

One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.

Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first best country ever is at home.

Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first best country ever is at home.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native read more

Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary, patriotism is defined as the last refuge of a scoundrel. With all due respect to read more

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary, patriotism is defined as the last refuge of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first.

I am not a Virginian but an American.

I am not a Virginian but an American.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all read more

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over
this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of
our nature.

He held it safer to be of the religion of the King or Queen that
were in being, for read more

He held it safer to be of the religion of the King or Queen that
were in being, for he knew that he came raw into the world, and
accounted it no point of wisdom to be broiled out of it.