National Identity Quotes

The cheapest form of pride however is national pride. For it reveals in the one thus afflicted the lack of individual qualities of which he could be proud, while he would not otherwise reach for what he shares with so many millions. He who possesses significant personal merits will rather recognize the defects of his own nation, as he has them constantly before his eyes, most clearly. But that poor blighter who has nothing in the world of which he can be proud, latches onto the last means of being proud, the nation to which he belongs to. Thus he recovers and is now in gratitude ready to defend with hands and feet all errors and follies which are its own.

Israel was not created in order to disappear.

I don't think of myself as either American or Australian really, I'm a true hybrid. It's a good thing for me because both of them are really good countries.

The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests.

America, our endless blessings bestow an enduring burden. But as Americans, we welcome our responsibility to lead.

Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.

… loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.

Nobody can send me to Pakistan. India is my country, and I love my country. Five generations of my family have lived and died on this land, and even my children will live in this country because this is my homeland.

I realized that I was African when I came to the United States. Whenever Africa came up in my college classes, everyone turned to me. It didn't matter whether the subject was Namibia or Egypt; I was expected to know, to explain.

It is not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away. They did not exist.

We have room but for one Language here and that is the English Language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans of American nationality and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house.

There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist.

Every country has the government it deserves.

We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

Why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements … Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us.

Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.

I carry the flag of Ireland all the time. I want to represent my country.

There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.

If India is not secular, then India is not India at all.

Russia can be either an empire or a democracy, but it cannot be both. . . . Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.

… in a republic, who is "the Country"? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then, is "the Country"? Is it the newspaper? is it the pulpit? Is it the school superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in a thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Who are the thousand--that is to say, who are "the Country"?

There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100% Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else

Let's not forget what the origin of the problem is. There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a 19th century idea and we are trying to transition into the 21st century, and we are going to do it with multi-ethnic states.

The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian; I am an American.... All distinctions are thrown down; all America is one mass.