Mark Twain Quotes About Patriots

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  In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

  Mark Twain

  Change, Thank You, Memorial Day

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.351, Courier Corporation

• The government is merely a servant―merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

  Mark Twain

  Government, Order, Political

  Mark Twain, Howard G. Baetzhold, Joseph B. Mccullough (1996). “The Bible According to Mark Twain”, p.88, Simon and Schuster

• Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

  Mark Twain

  Loyalty, Country, Peace

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.17, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• The nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which.

  Mark Twain

  Men, Half, Patriot

  Mark Twain (1976). “Mark Twain speaking”

• Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your
  country, let men label you as they may.

  Mark Twain

  Country, Integrity, 4th Of July

• [Patriotism] ...is a word which always commemorates a robbery. There isn't a foot of land in the world which doesn't represent the ousting and re-ousting of a longline of successive "owners" who each in turn, as "patriots" with proud swelling hearts defended it against the next gang of "robbers" who came to steal it and did -- and became swelling-hearted patriots in their turn.

  Mark Twain

  Heart, Land, Feet

  Notebook, 26 May 1896

• The citizen who sees his society's democratic clothes being worn out and does not cry it out, is not a patriot, but a traitor.

  Mark Twain

  Clothes, Liberty, Doe

• Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.

  Mark Twain

  Sarcastic, Sarcasm, Knowing

  Mark Twain, Louis J. Budd (1992). “Collected tales, sketches, speeches, & essays: 1891-1910”

• Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man - with his mouth.

  Mark Twain

  Country, Patriotic, Men

  Mark Twain (2009). “Mark Twain’s Book of Animals”, p.121, Univ of California Press

• A Patriot is someone who stands for his country always, and for his government when it is deserved.

  Mark Twain

  Country, Government, Patriot

• A man can be a Christian or a patriot, but he can't legally be a Christian and a patriot - except in the usual way: one of the two with the mouth, the other with the heart.

  Mark Twain

  Christian, Heart, Men

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.350, Courier Corporation

• To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, "Our Country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?

  Mark Twain

  Country, Religious, War

  Mark Twain, John S. Tuckey (1972). “Mark Twain's Fables of Man”, p.392, Univ of California Press

• O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain.

  Mark Twain

  Pain, Gun, Soldier

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.502, Courier Corporation

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