Flags & National Anthems Quotes

A moth-eaten rag on a worm-eaten pole, It does not look likely to stir a man's soul. 'Tis the deeds that were done 'neath the moth-eaten rag, When the pole was a staff, and the rag was a flag.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave, And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Show me the race or nation without a flag, and I will show you a people without any pride.

Here's to the red of it, There's not a thread of it, No, not a shred of it, In all the spread of it, From foot to head, But heroes bled for it, Faced steel and lead for it, Precious blood shed for it, Bathing in red.

The flag is the guarantor and symbol of equality.

I don’t like to see our flag torn down and trampled upon anywhere in the world and I think most Americans agree with me on that. I don’t like to see American citizens pushed around and there’s no good reason for letting it happen

When Freedom from her mountain height Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there. She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure, celestial white With streakings of the morning light.

We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.

The Republic never retreats. Its flag is the only flag that has never known defeat. Where that flag leads we follow, for we know that the hand that bears it onward is the unseen hand of God.

American labor, whenever it gathers, does so with love for its flag and country and loyalty to its government.

Your banner's constellation types White freedom with its stars, But what is the meaning of the stripes? They mean your Negroes' scars.

Respect for the flag transcends political party.

[The American flag] ... means the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny, to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world has ever known, or has since known—the right of men to their own selves and to their liberties.

God save Ireland, said the heroes God save Ireland said they all. Whether on the scaffold high, Or the battle field we die O’ what matter when for Ireland dear we fall.

This flag does not belong to the right wing of the Republican party. It belongs to all of us.

If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag, wash it.

Velvet and gilding do not make a throne, nor gold and jewels a scepter. It is a throne because the most exalted one sits there,—and a scepter because the most mighty one wields it.

We are ready to defend Baltimore against the enemy except that we have no ensign …

When I look at his gallant services, finding him first in the military school of the United States, educated at the expense of his country—taught to love the principles of the Constitution; afterwards entering its service fighting beneath the Stars and Stripes, ... I cannot understand how he can be willing to hail another banner, and turn from that of his country; .... If I could not unsheathe my sword in vindication of the flag of my country, ... I would return the sword to its scabbard; I would never sheathe it in the bosom of my mother. Never! Never! Never!

It is an unmistakable statement of contempt for a government to burn its flag.

Poland has not yet perished.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, Bowed with her fourscore years and ten; Bravest of all in Frederick town, She took up the flag the men hauled down; In her attic-window the staff she set, To show that one heart was loyal yet. Up the street came the rebel tread, Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. Under his slouched hat left and right He glanced: the old flag met his sight. "Halt!"—the dust-brown ranks stood fast. "Fire!"—out blazed the rifle-blast.  It shivered the window, pane and sash; It rent the banner with seam and gash. Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf; She leaned far out on the window-sill, And shook it forth with a royal will. "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country's flag," she said.

The Supreme Court decision [Texas v. Johnson, 1989] does not in any way indicate the government is backing off from forcing the flag on people. They just don't want to look too dictatorial in the way they do it.

I hereby declare him an American.

I done but do my duty boys. The flag never touched the ground.