Mark Twain On Patriotism

[Noj]

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.
- Notebook, 1904

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 of his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man"- with his mouth.
- "The Lowest Animal"


Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel. He is the man who talks the loudest.
- Education and Citizenship speech, 5/14/1908

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927

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. The spirit of Christianity proclaims the brotherhood of the race and the meaning of that strong word has not been left to guesswork, but made tremendously definite- the Christian must forgive his brother man all crimes he can imagine and commit, and all insults he can conceive and utter- forgive these injuries how many times?--seventy times seven--another way of saying there shall be no limit to this forgiveness. That is the spirit and the law of Christianity. Well--Patriotism has its laws. And it also is a perfectly definite one, there are not vaguenesses about it. It commands that the brother over the border shall be sharply watched and brought to book every time he does us a hurt or offends us with an insult. Word it as softly as you please, the spirit of patriotism is the spirit of the dog and wolf. The moment there is a misunderstanding about a boundary line or a hamper of fish or some other squalid matter, see patriotism rise, and hear him split the universe with is war-whoop. The spirit of patriotism being in its nature jealous and selfish, is just in man's line, it comes natural to him- he can live up to all its requirements to the letter; but the spirit of Christianity is not in its entirety possible to him.
The prayers concealed in what I have been saying is, not that patriotism should cease and not that the talk about universal brotherhood should cease, but that the incongruous firm be dissolved and each limb of it be required to transact business by itself, for the future.
- Mark Twain's Notebook

...majority Patriotism is the customary Patriotism.
- "As Regards Patriotism," Europe and Elsewhere

We teach them to take their patriotism at second-hand; to shout with the largest crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter--exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been taught. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place--the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice--and always has been.
- Mark Twain's Notebook

[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's Notebook


We have a bastard Patriotism, a sarcasm, a burlesque; but we have no such thing as a public conscience. Politically we are just a joke.
- marginalia written in Clemens's copy of The Future in America; A Search After Realities by H. G. Wells

Source, Twain quotes A-Z

[shrugs]

Patriots are a football team.

[Noj]

Originally Posted by shrugs

Patriots are a football team.

...and we all know how I feel about the miserable, cheating Pats.

[shrugs]

That stadium couldn't kiss the ass of a real stadium.

Ma just sits and keeps her silence.......

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

PATRIOTISM, n.
Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Squaredancecalling Steve

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

I'll follow Bierce and beg to submit that that isn't from Johnson's dictionary, but from his table conversation in 1775 as quoted by Boswell. Johnson's Dictionary (1755) defines "patriot" as One whose ruling passion is the love of his country, though by the fourth edition (1773) a second definition is offered: It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.

[Sandi22]

I grew up believing patriotism to be a good thing; that love of country and love of what being patriotic meant, entailed a certain rightiousness. We were taught that to be a patriot was wonderful, that to take the high road and fight against evils such as fascism and Nazism was a wonderful patriotic endeavor.

We at first didn't understand that to rebuild Germany and Japan was part of being a patriot.

I didn't think of being a patriot as being a blind nationalist, with hobnailed boots clomping through our cities streets with shows of blind allegiance, such as we see depicted in old news reels from the 30's and 40's, and then again in during the cold war, and in other struggles since then all over the globe. We were taught to always seek out the truth and to question authority as that way, surely the horrors of WWII's concentration camps could never happen again. That is, if we stayed viligant and exercised our own sensible kind of patriotism.

[Noj]

I don't necessarily agree with the quotes, but I thought it to be a worthy topic of discussion in conjunction with the current state of American politics. It's a tricky subject, determining where sensible loyalty ends and blind allegiance begins. Some throw their support behind every action the government takes, others question authority.

I also admire Samuel Clemens' eloquence.

[Sandi22]

Originally Posted by Noj

I don't necessarily agree with the quotes, but I thought it to be a worthy topic of discussion in conjunction with the current state of American politics. It's a tricky subject, determining where sensible loyalty ends and blind allegiance begins. Some throw their support behind every action the government takes, others question authority.

I also admire Samuel Clemens' eloquence.

I agree with what he's saying, it's just that old Sam and me, were taught differently about what it means to be a patriot. What I think of when I read what he has to say, I believe he and I are in agreement, it's just that we have different names for the same thing. What I believe as being patriotic, it's a good thing; this patriotism which, rightfully so, makes one feel proud to be alive, while the other side of this word stands for so much distruction and stupidity. Believing my Nationalism, (and his Patriotism), is like being a sheep being lead to slaughter. To me, to be patriotic is to stay in the know, to stand up for the underdog, to question governments actions and to act to counteract anything it might be doing which isn't good and rightious, and so on and so on. Whereas Nationalism is the way of doing things he believes patriotism does. It's not easy to keep abreast of so many things, as there is so much going on that it can become overwhelming, especially when there's so much smoke, and so many mirrors. A patriot, with how I use the word, does this however, and works at making things better, not trying to rabble rouse, which Nationalists oftentimes seem to do. I do have a different word for what it means to be a Patriot, however, he and I are in agreement.

[Tom Storer]

Originally Posted by Sandi22

I agree with what he's saying, it's just that old Sam and me, were taught differently about what it means to be a patriot.

I very much doubt that his description of patriotism is what he was taught. Rather, it was what he deduced about how the concept is often used and what it serves to mask. He was probably taught that patriotism is a wonderful thing.

[Monte Smith]

Here's Boswell: "Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong and determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: "Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel." But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self interest."

The patriotism which perhaps inflamed Johnson to apophthegm was the patriotism of American rebels (whom he loathed), Scottish Jacobites threatening civil war (he hated Scots), and the public nuisance and liberty-lauding of that factious disturber of government, John Wilkes. Johnson was a Tory and so a supporter, in principle, of the exiled Stuart monarchy. Yet he was pensioned by the Hanovers and took a lot of public grief over his principles not interfering with his self interest.

[Tom Storer]

Apophthegm is the last resort of a scoundrel!

[Monte Smith]

That's a lot harder to say.

[Tom Storer]

For some reason I hear the word in a Daffy Duck voice.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

For some reason I hear the word in a Daffy Duck voice.

For some reason I hear what you write in a Goofy voice: