My Country, Right or Wrong/Quotes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

'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 mother, drunk or sober'.

—G. K. Chesterton, A Defence of Patriotism - The Defendant

But you know as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean ‘whither my country right or wrong,’ which is infamous, or ‘my country is always right,’ which is imbecile.

—Stephen Maturin, Aubrey-Maturin

Were my heart my master, I would do exactly as you say. But what sort of knight abandons his kingdom - his king! - now, when they need him the most?.

—Camus, Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon

Soldier: Lord Captain! We are the Red Wings, the pride of Baron! Must we now be thieves, sent to plunder from the weak?
Cecil: Enough.
Soldier: But, Lord Captain! The Mysidians offered no resistance! And still we cut them down!
Cecil: Listen to me. We did no more than what our kingdom's peace and prosperity required us to do. The Mysidians knew too much of the Crystal and its secrets. His Majesty deemed it so. We are the Red Wings of Baron! It is not our place to question the orders of our king.

—Final Fantasy IV DS

American general: You mean your convictions or your country's convictions?
General Kuribayashi: Are they not the same?
American general: Spoken like a true soldier.

—Letters From Iwo Jima

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel

— Samuel Johnson

The world will never know how I struggled with the decision to stay out of the electorial process. Should I have gone on television and told the voters not to elect this man? And what then? If I use my influence -- my character and my reputation -- to tell people how to vote, what does that make me? I choose to fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way. And for all it's flaws, American democracy does work... The United States doesn't need me to dictate, or worse, deprive her people of that most precious gift. The freedom of choice. Even when I knew in my heart that choice was wrong.

— Superman, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

Enoch Powell: No, we do not fight for values. I would fight for this country even if it had a Communist government.
Margaret Thatcher: Nonsense, Enoch. If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values.
Enoch Powell: No, Prime Minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed.

Because today I am on state business, and I have no inclination to let private friendship override my public duty.

—Xu Huang, Romance of the Three Kingdoms

A man may have to die for his country, but no man may in any exclusive sense, live for his country.

—C. S. Lewis: Learning in Wartime
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I think of the deceits played on innocent civilians by some of our wily politicians but I am willing to take orders from the High Command and even from the politicians because I believe in the nation of Japan...I must smite the foe who violates our homeland. My grave shall be the sea around Okinawa and I will see my mother and grandmother again.
—quoted by Robert H. Spector: At War at Sea
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