Burke and Adams had much in common. Adams read Burke's Philosophical Inquiry, for example, as part of his preparation for life and... a career. Burke--who had sympathized with the American Revolution--after all, the patriots were only seeking their rights as Englishmen--became the avowed enemy of the French Revolution. Adams for his part was not only a thinker, he was a doer: a daring patriot, diplomat, vice-president and president. Yet he never abandoned the life of the mind, as his discourse against the French Revolution attests. Burke and Adams had their similar views on events because they each saw man as disposed to selfishness, requiring public institutions to which civic allegiance is owed to restrain those ignoble instincts so that the virtuous side of people would have a chance to flourish. It was, oddly, an optimism based on a pessimistic estimate of human nature.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"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 mo...ther, drunk or sober."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Now rest in peace, our patriot band; Though far from nature's limits thrown,... We trust they find a happier land, A brighter sunshine of their own.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Paul de Bursac: You don't think much of me, Captain Morgan. You're wondering why they have chosen me for this mission. I wonder to...o. As you know, I am not a brave man. On the contrary, I'm always frightened. I wish I could borrow your nature for awhile, Captain. When you meet danger, you never think of anything except how you will circumvent it. The word failure does not even exist for you. While I, I think always, suppose I fail and that I am frightened. Harry Morgan: Yeah, I can easily see how it wouldn't take much courage to get a notorious patriot off Devils' Island. But uh, but just for professional reasons, I'd like to know how you're going to do it. Paul de Bursac: We will find a way. It might fail, and if it does and I'm, I'm still alive, I will try to pass on my information, my mission, to someone else, perhaps to a better man who does not fail. Because there is always someone else. That is the mistake the Germans always make with people they try to destroy. There will be always someone else.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... if there are no waving flags and marching songs at the barricades as Walter marches out with his little battalion, it is not b...ecause the battle lacks nobility. On the contrary, he has picked up in his way, still imperfect and wobbly in his small view of human destiny.... He becomes, in spite of those who are too intrigued with despair and hatred of man to see it, King Oedipus refusing to tear out his eyes, but attacking the oracle instead. He is that last Jewish patriot manning his rifle at Warsaw.... He is Anne Frank, still believing in people; he is the nine small heroes of Little Rock; he is Michelangelo creating David and Beethoven bursting forth with the Ninth Symphony. He is all these things because he has finally reached out in his tiny moment and caught that sweet essence which is human dignity, and it shines like the old star-touched dream that is in his eyes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalis...t is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotis...m was only good for legends; it was bad for their prose and made them write bad poetry. If you are going to be a great patriot, i.e., loyal to any existing order of government (not one who wishes to destroy the existing for something better), you want to be killed early if your life and works won't stink.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It becomes clear at once that patriotism undoubtedly belongs to the positive realm. The very word says as much: love of fatherland.... Or is that perhaps giving too lofty an appraisal of the concept in the course of translating it? If the characteristic of true love is that it gives more than it asks, then the good patriot should examine his own sentiment. An inborn attachment to what is one's own does not of itself deserve the name of love. If the state is at peace and is as well-governed as a human community can be, then the citizen's loyalty to his country, his services to it in the forms of energy, devotion, and funds, in general coincide with his own vital interests. The fatherland repays his loyalty by giving him safety, justice, and sometimes even freedom. In fulfilling his patriotic duties he is not performing an act of love. Only when the fatherland is in danger does his giving become a sacrifice, his serving a suffering, his loyalty a love.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »