Nation and Patriotism

BOSWELL : I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it …

The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!

Take away time is money, and what is left of England? take away cotton is king, and what is left of America?

I, too, sing America.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

We pause to … recall what our country has done for each of us and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return.

Such is the patriot’s boast, where’er we roam,

For he might have been a Roosian,

The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,

Are you a politician who says to himself: ‘I will use my country for my own benefit’? … Or are you a devoted patriot, who whispers in the ear of his inner self: ‘I love to serve my country as a faithful servant.’

The land was ours before we were the land’s.

And the wind shall say: ‘Here were decent godless people:

Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.

All that foreign oil controlling American soil.

Fairest Isle, all isles excelling.

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.

From this amphibious ill-born mob began

Your Roman-Saxon-Danish-Norman English.

I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.

England, with all thy faults, I love thee still—

It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion’s heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget.

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,