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Note:  Not all these authors are from the U.S.A.; however, the sentiments can be applied to patriotism all around the globe.

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives.  I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him. --Abraham Lincoln

America is a tune.  It must be sung together. --Gerald Stanley Lee, Crowds

We can't all be Washingtons, but we can all be patriots. --Charles F. Browne

What is the essence of America?  Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from." --Marilyn vos Savant, in Parade

[P]atriotism... is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. --Adlai Stevenson

A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. --George William Curtis

When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea.  He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect. --Adlai Stevenson

Love your country.  Your country is the land where your parents sleep, where is spoken that language in which the chosen of your heart, blushing, whispered the first word of love; it is the home that God has given you that by striving to perfect yourselves therein you may prepare to ascend to him. --Giuseppe Mazzini

There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream.  They are right.  It is the American dream. --Archibald MacLeish

National honor is national property of the highest value. --James Monroe, first inaugural address, 4 March 1817

How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy. --Paul Sweeney

May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country! --Daniel Webster

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave. --Elmer Davis

The stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things that matter for a nation; the great peaks of honour we had forgotten - duty and patriotism, clad in glittering white; the great pinnacle of sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to heaven. --David Lloyd George

Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Poet," Essays, Second Series, 1844

If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace. --Hamilton Fish

And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
--Lee Greenwood

The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American. --Thomas Jefferson

America is much more than a geographical fact.  It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality. --Adlai Stevenson

From every mountain side
Let Freedom ring.
--Samuel F. Smith, "America"

Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea. --John Gunther

America is a passionate idea or it is nothing.  America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos. --Max Lerner, Actions and Passions, 1949

Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all!
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
--John Dickinson

The skies of happiness shine upon these United States of America. --Terri Guillemets

If you are ashamed to stand by your colors, you had better seek another flag. --Author Unknown

Where liberty dwells, there is my country. --Benjamin Franklin

Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable! --Daniel Webster

If you take advantage of everything America has to offer, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. --Geraldine Ferraro

Oh, it's home again and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea
To the blessed land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.
--Henry Van Dyke

Sometimes people call me an idealist.  Well, that is the way I know I am an American.  America is the only idealistic nation in the world. --Woodrow Wilson
This, then, is the state of the union:  free and restless, growing and full of hope.  So it was in the beginning.  So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith. --Lyndon B. Johnson
We sleep peacefully at night, cradled by the big strong hands of America. --Val Saintsbury

America is another name for opportunity.  Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love my freedom.  I love my America. --Jessi Lane Adams

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in. --Theodore Roosevelt

Of all the supervised conditions for life offered man, those under USA's constitution have proved the best.  Wherefore, be sure when you start modifying, corrupting or abrogating it. --Martin H. Fischer

He loves his country best who strives to make it best. --Robert G. Ingersoll

It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism. --J. Horace McFarland

"Our country, right or wrong."  When right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right. --Carl Schurz

Off with your hat, as the flag goes by!
And let the heart have its say;
you're man enough for a tear in your eye
that you will not wipe away.
--Henry Cuyler Bunner

It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the men whose people have been here many generations. --Henry Cabot Lodge

The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic - have always blown on free men. --Franklin D. Roosevelt

Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name. --Woodrow Wilson

Star-spangled happiness
and banner waves of pride.
--Cherishe Archer

My God!  How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! --Thomas Jefferson

America, for me, has been the pursuit and catching of happiness. --Aurora Raigne

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom. --Simone de Beauvoir

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. --William J. Clinton

My favorite thing about the United States?  Lots of Americans, one America. --Val Saintsbury

Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance.  It is also owed to justice and to humanity.  Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong. --James Bryce

Our great modern Republic.  May those who seek the blessings of its institutions and the protection of its flag remember the obligations they impose. --Ulysses S. Grant

For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail? --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. --Louis D. Brandeis

Men love their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own. --Seneca

Territory is but the body of a nation.  The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life. --James Garfield

Ev'ry heart beats true
'neath the Red, White and Blue,
--George M. Cohan

We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us..... The old "manifest destiny" idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can - and that without cant, without the assumption of self-righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations. --Francis John McConnell

I believe in America because we have great dreams - and because we have the opportunity to make those dreams come true. --Wendell L. Wilkie

To me, being an American means feeling safe. --Currielene Armstrong

We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls. --Robert J. McCracken

It is sweet to serve one's country by deeds, and it is not absurd to serve her by words. --Sallust

We need an America with the wisdom of experience.  But we must not let America grow old in spirit. --Hubert H. Humphrey

May I never wake up from the American dream. --Carrie Latet

A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. --Bill Vaughan

I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that patriot. --Gary Hart

My patriotic heart beats red, white, and blue. --Author Unknown

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

All we have of freedom, all we use or know - This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
--Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue, 1899

What we need are critical lovers of America - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it. --Hubert H. Humphrey

You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world. --Herman Melville

Our hearts where they rocked our cradle,
Our love where we spent our toil,
And our faith, and our hope, and our honor,
We pledge to our native soil.
God gave all men all earth to love,
But since our hearts are small,
Ordained for each one spot should prove
Beloved over all.
--Rudyard Kipling

He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland. --Harry Emerson Fosdick

We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights. --Felix Frankfurter

Patriotism is easy to understand in America - it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country. --Calvin Coolidge

We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution. --John F. Kennedy

The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation. --Woodrow Wilson

Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country. --Sinclair Lewis