Quotes & Sayings About Patriotism And Religion

Patriotism was a fool's religion, a crude social bonding device that defeated itself by inciting violence and inviting reprisal. — Crawford Kilian

I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities. — Ambrose Bierce

Patriotism is a superstition, one far more injurious, brutal and inhumane than religion. — Gustave Herve

The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to ranking spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness. — William Hazlitt

Beware of capitalism's politicians and preachers! They are the lineal descendants of the hypocrites of old who all down the ages have guarded the flock in the name of patriotism and religion and secured the choicest provender and the snuggest booths for themselves by turning the sheep over to the ravages of the wolves. — Eugene V. Debs

There are so many things to exploit man, but religion and patriotism are at the top of the list. — Tarif Naaz

There is no New Testament basis for a linking of church and state until Christ, the King returns. The whole "Constantine mentality" from the fourth century up to our day was a mistake. Constantine, as the Roman Emperor, in 313 ended the persecution of Christians. Unfortunately, the support he gave to the church led by 381 to the enforcing of Christianity, by Theodosius I, as the official state religion. Making Christianity the official state religion opened the way for confusion up till our own day. There have been times of very good government when this interrelationship of church and state has been present. But through the centuries it has caused great confusion between loyalty to the state and loyalty to Christ, between patriotism and being a Christian.
We must not confuse the Kingdom of God with our country. To say it another way: "We should not wrap our Christianity in our national flag. — Francis A. Schaeffer

Patriotism is merely a religion-love of country, worship of country, devotion to the country's flag and honor and welfare. — Mark Twain

Religion, morality, and patriotism are feelings that are manifested only when they are outraged. — Karl Kraus

No true power can be founded among men which does not depend upon the free union of their inclinations; and patriotism and religion are the only two motives in the world which can permanently direct the whole of the body politic to one end. — Alexis De Tocqueville

[Patriotism] is in itself a kind of religion: it does not reason, but it acts from the impulse of faith and sentiment. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Her religion
perhaps, Alwyn thought, American Christianity as a whole
was a religion of ideal prose; all the beauty it had was the elegance of a perfect law, a Napoleonic code. It deified Jesus, but deified Him as a social leader and teacher martyred for His virtue, a compassionate attorney at the right hand of God the judge, and a fulfillment of the half-political prophecies of the Old Testament
whose jurisprudence of hygiene, family relations, patriotism, and commerce, its morality resembled. — Glenway Wescott

The Armorys of this world don't steal. They serve their country right or wrong. Or they do until the day when they come face to face with real life and their warped rectitude deserts them and their faces unlock and become real, puzzled faces like everybody else's. So there's another god for you that's passed its sell-by date: enlightened patriotism, until this afternoon Nick Armory's religion. (ch. 14) — John Le Carre

He must have had this Wall Street gentry in mind, or at least their prototypes, for in every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people. — Eugene V. Debs

People say love is weak, but they're wrong: love is strong. In nearly everyone it trumps all other things - patriotism and ambition, religion and upbringing. And every kind of love - the epic and the small, the noble and the base - the one that a parent has for their child is the greatest of them all. That was the lesson I learned that day, and I'll be forever grateful I did. Some years later, deep in the ruins called Theatre of Death, it salvaged everything. — Terry Hayes

Some Christians worried about a faith that was so embracing as to be meaningless, that exalted not the Almighty so much as the American way of life. When civil religion bleached the challenge from faith and left behind a watery patriotism, there was room for concern. — Nancy Gibbs; Michael Duffy

I am blessed to live in a democracy, not a totalitarian state. But the democracy I cherish is constantly threatened by a brand of politics that clothes avarice and the arrogance of power in patriotic and religious garb. — Parker J. Palmer

fellow humans, the need for a certain cult of fellowship - a psychological, almost physiological need for approval of one's thought and action. A force that kept men from going off at unsocial tangents, a force that made for social security and human solidarity, for the working together of the human family. Men died for that approval, sacrificed for that approval, lived lives they loathed for that approval. For without it a man was on his own, an outcast, an animal that had been driven from the pack. It had led to terrible things, of course - to mob psychology, to racial persecution, to mass atrocities in the name of patriotism or religion. But likewise it had been the sizing that held the race together, the thing that from the very start had made human society possible. And — Clifford D. Simak

SCREW CHILDREN!
That's the mantra of the world.
Instead of burying them with a national debt, shoving them in shitty schools, drugging them if they don't comply, hitting them, yelling at them, indoctrinating them with religion and statism and patriotism and military worship, what if we just did what was right for them? The whole world is built on "screw children", and if we changed that, this would be an alien planet to us. — Stefan Molyneux

My religion and my patriotism derived from my religion, embrace all life. — Mahatma Gandhi

In every society in human history, including the United States, those in power seek to imbue themselves with the attributes of religion and patriotism as a way of getting greater support for their policy and insulating themselves from any criticism. — George J. Mitchell

The need of one human being for the approval of his fellow humans, the need for a certain cult of fellowship - a psychological, almost physiological need for approval of one's thought and action. A force that kept men from going off at unsocial tangents, a force that made for social security and human solidarity, for the working together of the human family.
Men died for that approval, sacrificed for that approval, lived lives they loathed for that approval. For without it man was on his own, an outcast, an animal that had been driven from the pack.
It had led to terrible things, of course - to mob psychology, to racial persecution, to mass atrocities in the name of patriotism or religion. But likewise it had been the sizing that held the race together, the thing that from the very start had made human society possible.
And Joe didn't have it. Joe didn't give a damn. He didn't care what anyone thought of him. He didn't care whether anyone approved or not. — Clifford D. Simak

Today one might be tempted to say that patriotism is the last refuge of the tribal religion dedicated to the worship of German, French, English and Russian Gods of Battles. Surely such a religion has nothing in common with the religion which counsels for the disciple non-resistance, unstinted forgiveness, and the elimination of all rancor? — Joseph Alexander Leighton

My definition, the definition that I've always believed in, is that esprit de corps means love for one's own military legion - in my case, the United States Marine Corps. It means more than self-preservation, religion, or patriotism. I've also learned that this loyalty to one's corps travels both ways: up and down. — Chesty Puller

We led strange, hidden lives. We were advocating one thing: that this country rid itself of the racism that prevented some citizens from living as fully functioning men and as a result dehumanized all men. We were advocating only that this country live up to its promises to all citizens. But since racism always hides under a respectable guise - usually the guise of patriotism and religion - a great many people loathed us for knocking holes in these respectable guises. It was clear that we would have to live always under threat. — John Howard Griffin

Patriotism and religion are the only two motives in the world which can permanently direct the whole of a body politic to one end. — Alexis De Tocqueville

One cannot worship the false god of nationalism and the God of Christianity at the same time. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We must be truthful and fair in the ordinary affairs of life before we can be truthful and fair in patriotism and religion. — E.W. Howe

He saw that science had become as great a hoax as religion, that nationalism was a farce, patriotism a fraud, education a form of leprosy, and that morals were for cannibals — Henry Miller

I think that what I was talking about was that as a woman growing up in a Mormon tradition in Salt Lake City, Utah, we were taught - and we are still led to believe - that the most important value is obedience. But that obedience in the name of religion or patriotism ultimately takes our souls. So I think it's this larger issue of what is acceptable and what is not; where do we maintain obedience and law and where do we engage in civil disobedience - where we can cross the line physically and metaphorically and say, "No, this is no longer appropriate behavior." — Terry Tempest Williams

The fact that you are here tonight gathered together with us testifies to the fact you understand the need for this organization and the need for redoubling our efforts in this organization to try to assure that democracy as represented by the United States must depend upon a total freedom of religion, which is written into our Constitution, of course, and the mere suggestion that anyone could maintain that one's patriotism, one's devotion to one's country can be judged by one's religion is so vile, so vile that we have to take to the streets indeed and to put it aside. — Walter Cronkite

Religion robs the soul of its independence; patriotism is the stupid worship of the world for which the well-being and the peace of the inhabitants were sacrificed by those who profit by it, while the laws of the land, in restraining natural desires, were waging war on the manifest spirit of the law of our beings. Compared with this," he concluded, "thieving is an honorable pursuit."[5] — Emma Goldman

In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.
(Canton, OH, Anti-War Speech, June 16, 1918) — Eugene V. Debs

See, being a person is kind of random and arbitrary business. You may have noticed that. And you need to believe in something to keep it from being too random and arbitrary to handle. Some people take religion, or success, or patriotism, or family, but for a lot of guys those things don't work. A guy like me. I don't have religion or family that sort of thing. So you accept some system of order, and you stick to it. — Robert B. Parker

Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving! — O. Henry

The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate bondage, and the meanest and most servile preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, whilst men without patriotism and without principle put themselves forward as the apostles of civilization and intelligence. Has such been the fate of the centuries which have preceded our own? and has man always inhabited a world like the present, where all things are out of their natural connections, where virtue is without genius, and genius without honor; where the love of order is confounded with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a contempt of law; where the light thrown by conscience on human actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true? — Alexis De Tocqueville

The roots of the discontent are internal, and each person must untangle them personally, with his or her own power. The shields that have worked in the past - the order that religion, patriotism, ethnic traditions, and habits instilled by social classes used to provide - are no longer effective for increasing numbers of people who feel exposed to the harsh winds of chaos. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I have heard people say love is weak but they're wrong
love is strong. In nearly everyone it trumps all other things
patriotism and ambition, religion and upbringing. And of every kind of love
the epic and the small, the noble and the base
the one that a parent has for their child is the greatest of them all. — Terry Hayes

This is our sacred land, Bharat, a land whose glories are sung by the
Gods, a land visualized by Mahayogi Aurobindo as the living manifestation
of the Divine Mother of the universe, the Jaganmaataa, the Aadishakti,
the Mahaamaayaa, the Mahaadurgaa, Who has assumed concrete form to
enable us to see Her and worship Her,...a land worshipped by all our seers and
sages as Maatrubhoomi, Dharmabhoomi, Karmabhoomi and Punybhoomi, a
veritable Devabhoomi and Mokshabhoomi" - — Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar

That public virtue which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature; honour and religion. — Edward Gibbon

In a world where people are divided by sex, race, religion, patriotism, nationality, bipartisanship, and so-called borders, we need more people who are genuine with others and perspicuous with the way the world actually works, despite all the labels and... rhetoric. We need people who are not bound by any specific creed, nation or state, but who subsume them all and are free to create and destroy the many symbols and ideas that float around them, while moving freely and open-mindedly through their social environment. If we would be authentic with our world we should be as resourceful and multi-layered as possible, cultivating a Renaissance spirit. The more abundant our intent, the more epic our presence will be. The more universal our love, the more authentic our journey will be. — Gary McGee