QOTD

[redbird]

I stole this one from dglenn, because it seems too apropos not to spread:

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." -- Mark Twain

Comments

[bibliotrope.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard that one, and I love Twain, so I went Googling for it in context and found this (http://peoplescom.net/~winnco/twain/The%20Czar's%20Soliloquy.htm):

.... There are twenty-five million families in Russia. There is a man-child at every mother's knee. If these were twenty-five million patriotic mothers, they would teach these man-children daily, saying: "Remember this, take it to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it." With twenty-five million taught and trained patriots in the land a generation from now, my successor would think twice before he would butcher a thousand helpless poor petitioners humbly begging for his kindness and justice, as I did the other day.
--from "The Czar's Soliloquy," North American Review 180 (March 1905).